Chapter I: The Good (4)

More than this: A certain amount of intelligence, and a certain amount of susceptibility to embodied ideals, _must_ exist to give moral conduct. A moral end is, as we have seen, always a _conception_, an idea. The very act of bringing conduct out of the impulsive into the moral sphere, depends upon the development of intelligence so as to transform a feeling into the perception of a situation. And, as we watch moral development from childhood to maturity, is it not evident that progress consists in power to conceive of larger and better defined ends? to analyze the situation which demands active response, the function which needs exercise, into specific relations, instead of taking it partially or even upon some one else's say so? Conduct, so far as not based upon an intelligent recognition and realization of the relationships involved, is either sentimental, or _merely_ habitual--in the former case immoral, and in the latter failing of the complete morality possible.

If the necessary part played in conduct by artistic cultivation is not so plain, it is largely because 'Art' has been made such an unreal Fetich--a sort of superfine and extraneous polish to be acquired only by specially cultivated people. In reality, living is itself the supreme art; it requires fineness of touch; skill and thoroughness of workmanship; susceptible response and delicate adjustment to a situation apart from reflective analysis; instinctive perception of the proper harmonies of act and act, of man and man. Active art is the embodiment of ideals; the clothing of ideas otherwise abstract in their peculiar and fit garb of concrete outward detail; passive art is the quick and accurate response to such embodiments as are already made. What were human conduct without the one and the other?

Granting the necessity of knowledge and of its artistic application in conduct, the question arises as to where the line is to be drawn. Evidently, if anywhere, at specialisms, remote philosophic or mathematical endeavors; life-times spent in inventive attempts without appreciable outcome. But to draw the line is not easy. The remote of one generation is the social tool of the next; the abstract mathematics and physics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the great social forces of the nineteenth--the locomotive, the telegraph, the telephone, etc. And how, in any case, can we tell a scientific investigator that up to a certain experiment or calculation his work may be social, beyond that, not? All that we can say is that beyond a certain point its social character is not obvious to sense and that the work must be carried on by faith.

Thus it is that we dispose of objections like Bradley's (Ethical Studies, p. 202): "Nothing is easier than to suppose a life of art or speculation which, as far as we can see, though true to itself, has, so far as others are concerned, been sheer waste or even loss, and which knew that it was so." That we can not _see_ any social _result_ in such cases has nothing to do with the question whether or not the interests themselves are social. We may imagine a life of philanthropic activity, say of devotion to emancipation of slaves in a country wholly given over to slavery, or of a teacher in an unenlightened country, which, as far as we can see, (though, in this case, as in the one referred to by Mr. Bradley, everything depends upon how far we _can_ see) has been sheer waste, so far as influence on others is concerned. The point is whether in such cases the life lived is not one of devotion to the interests of humanity as such.

We have been trying to show that everyone admits that
science and art, up to a certain point, are social, and
that to draw a line where they cease to be so, is in
reality to draw a line where we cease to _see_ their social
character. That we should cease to _see_ it, is necessary
in the case of almost every advance. Just because the new
scientific movement is new, we can realize its social
effects only afterwards. But it may be questioned whether
the motive which actuates the man of science is not, when
fully realized, a _faith_ in the social bearing of what he
is doing. If we were to go into a metaphysical analysis,
the question would have to be raised whether a barely
intellectual fact or theory be not a pure abstraction--an
unreality if kept apart entirely from the activities of men
in relation to one another.

XXXIX.

Science and Art as Necessary Factors of Social Welfare.

Let us consider the problem on its other side. What kind of an interest is our interest in persons, our distinctively social interest? Suppose we attempt to separate our interests in truth, beauty, and use from our interest in persons: _What remains in the persons to be interested in?_ Is not a necessary part of out interest in persons, an interest in them as beings fulfilling their respective intellectual and artistic capacities; and if we cut this out of our social interest, have we not maimed and stunted our interest in persons? We wish the fullest life possible to ourselves and to others. And the fullest life means largely a complete and free development of capacities in knowledge and production--production of beauty and use. Our interest in others is not satisfied as long as their intelligence is cramped, their appreciation of truth feeble, their emotions hard and uncomprehensive, their powers of production compressed. To will their true good is to will the freeing of all such gifts to the highest degree. Shall we say that their true good requires that they shall go to the point of understanding algebra, but not quaternions, of understanding ordinary mechanics, but not to working out an electro-magnetic theory of light? to ability to appreciate ordinary chords and tunes, but not to the attempt to make further developments in music?

And this throws light upon the case referred to by Mr. Bradley. _Social_ welfare demands that the individual be permitted to devote himself to the fulfilling of _any_ scientific or artistic capacity that he finds within himself--provided, of course, it does not conflict with some more important capacity--irrespective of results. To say to a man: You may devote yourself to this gift, provided you demonstrate beforehand its social bearing, would be to talk nonsense. The new discovery is not yet made. It is absolutely required by the interests of a progressive society that it allow freedom to the individual to develop such functions as he finds in himself, irrespective of any _proved_ social effect. Here, as elsewhere, morality works by faith, not by sight.

Indeed the ordinary conception of social interests, of benevolence, needs a large over-hauling. It is practically equivalent to doing something directly for others--to one form or another of charity. But this is only negative morality. A true social interest is that which wills for others freedom from dependence on our _direct_ help, which wills to them the self-directed power of exercising, in and by themselves, their own functions. Any will short of this is not social but selfish, willing the dependence of others that we may continue benignly altruistic. The idea of "giving pleasure" to others, "making others happy", if it means anything else than securing conditions so that they may act freely in their own satisfaction, means slavery.

As society advances, social interest must consist more and more in free devotion to intelligence for its own sake, to science, art and industry, and in rejoicing in the exercise of such freedom by others. Meantime, it is truth which makes free.

See Spencer, Data of Ethics, pp. 249-257, where this
doctrine is stated with great force.

Where, finally, does the social character of science and art come in? Just here: they are elements in the perfection of individuality, and they are elements whose very nature is to be moving, not rigid; distributed from one to another and not monopolistic possessions. If there are forms of science and art which, at present, are static, being merely owned collections of facts, as one may have a collection of butterflies in a frame, or of etchings in a closed portfolio, this is not because they are science and art, but imperfect science and art. To complete their scientific and artistic character is to set these facts in motion; to hurl them against the world of physical forces till new instruments of man's activity are formed, and to set them in circulation so that others may also participate in their truth and rejoice in their beauty. So far as scientific or artistic attainments are treasured as individual possessions, so far it _is_ true that they are not social--but so far it is _also_ true that they are immoral: indeed that they are not fully scientific or artistic, being subordinated to having certain sensations.

The intellectual movement of the last four or five centuries has resulted in an infinite specialization in methods, and in an immense accumulation of fact. It is quite true, since the diversity of fact and of method has not yet been brought to an organic unity, that their social bearing is not yet realized. But when the unity is attained (as attained it must be if there is unity in the object of knowledge), it will pass into a corresponding unity of practice. And then the question as to the social character of even the most specialized knowledge will seem absurd. It will be to ask whether men can coöperate better when they do not know than when they do know what they want. Meantime the intellectual confusion, and the resulting divorce of knowledge from practice, exists. But this constitutes a part of the environment of which action must take heed. It makes it one of the pressing duties that every man of intelligence should do his part in bringing out the public and common aspects of knowledge. _The_ duty of the present is the socializing of intelligence--the realizing of its bearing upon social practice.

XL.

The Ethical Postulate.

We have attempted to show that the various interests are social in their very nature. We have not attempted to show that this can be seen or proved in any given case. On the contrary, in most, if not all cases, the agent acts from a faith that, in realizing his own capacity, he will satisfy the needs of society. If he were asked to _prove_ that his devotion to his function were right because certain to promote social good, he might well reply: "That is none of my affair. I have only to work myself out as strength and opportunity are given me, and let the results take care of themselves. I did not make the world, and if it turns out that devotion to the capacity which was given me, and loyalty to the surroundings in which I find myself do not result in good, I do not hold myself responsible. But, after all, I cannot believe that it will so turn out. What is really good for me _must_ turn out good for all, or else there is no good in the world at all." The basis, in a word, of moral conduct, with respect to the exercise of function, is a faith that moral self-satisfaction (that is, satisfaction in accordance with the performance of function as already defined) means social satisfaction--or the faith that self and others make a true community. Now such faith or conviction is at the basis of all moral conduct--not simply of the scientific or artistic. Interest in self must mean belief in one's business, conviction of its legitimacy and worth, even prior to any sensible demonstration. Under any circumstances, such demonstration can extend only to past action; the social efficiency of any new end must be a matter of faith. Where such faith is wanting, action becomes halting and character weak. Forcible action fails, and its place is taken by a feeble idealism, of vague longing for that which is not, or by a pessimistic and fruitless discontent with things as they are--leading, in either case, to neglect of actual and pressing duty. The basis of moral strength is _limitation_, the resolve to be one's self only, and to be loyal to the actual powers and surroundings of that self. The saying of Carlyle's about doing the "duty that lies nearest", and of Goethe's that "America is here or nowhere", both imply that faith in the existing moral capacity and environment is the basis of conduct. All fruitful and sound human endeavor roots in the conviction that there is something absolutely worth while, something 'divine' in the demands imposed by one's actual situation and powers. In the great moral heroes of the world the conviction of the worth of their destiny, and of what they were meant to do, has amounted to a kind of fatalism. They have done not simply what they _could_ do, but what they _must_ do.

On the other hand, effective social interest is based upon what is vaguely called 'faith in humanity', or, more specifically, belief in the value of each man's individuality, belief in some particular function which he might exercise, given appropriate conditions and stimuli. Moral interest in others must be an interest in their possibilities, rather than in their accomplishments; or, better, in their accomplishments so far as these testify to a fulfilling of function--to a working out of capacity. Sympathy and work for men which do not grow out of faith in them are a perfunctory and unfertile sort of thing.

This faith is generally analyzed no further; it is left as faith in one's 'calling' or in 'humanity'. But what is meant is just this: in the performing of such special service as each is capable of, there is to be found not only the satisfaction of self, but also the satisfaction of the entire moral order, the furthering of the community in which one lives. All moral conduct is based upon such a faith; and _moral theory must recognize this as the postulate upon which it rests_. In calling it a postulate, we do not mean that it is a postulate which our theory makes or must make in order to be a theory; but that, through analysis, theory _finds that moral practice makes this postulate_, and that with its reality the reality end value of conduct are bound up.

In calling it a postulate we do not mean to call it unprovable, much less unverifiable, for moral experience is itself, so far as it goes, its verification. But we mean that the further consideration of this postulate, its demonstration or (if the case so be) its refutation, do not belong to the realm of ethics as such. Each branch of human experience rests upon some presupposition which, _for that branch_, is ultimate. The further inquiry into such presuppositions belong not to mathematics, or physics, or ethics, but to metaphysics.

Unless, then, we are to extend our ethical theory to inquire into the possibility and value of moral experience, unless, that is, we are to make an excursion into the metaphysics of ethics, we have here reached our foundation. The ethical postulate, the presupposition involved in conduct, is this:

IN THE REALIZATION OF INDIVIDUALITY THERE IS FOUND ALSO THE NEEDED REALIZATION OF SOME COMMUNITY OF PERSONS OF WHICH THE INDIVIDUAL IS A MEMBER; AND, CONVERSELY, THE AGENT WHO DULY SATISFIES THE COMMUNITY IN WHICH HE SHARES, BY THAT SAME CONDUCT SATISFIES HIMSELF.

Otherwise put, the postulate is that there is a community of persons; a good which realized by the will of one is made not private but public. It is this unity of individuals as respects the end of action, this existence of a practical common good, that makes what we call the moral order of the world.

Shakespeare has stated the postulate--

To thine ownself be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou can'st not then be false to any man.

Its significance may be further developed by comparing it with the scientific postulate.

All science rests upon the conviction of the thorough-going and permanent unity of the world of objects known--a unity which is sometimes termed the 'uniformity of nature' or the 'reign of law'; without this conviction that objects are not mere isolated and transitory appearances, but are connected together in a system by laws or relations, science would be an impossibility. Moral experience _makes for the world of practice_ an assumption analogous in kind to that which intellectual experience makes for the world of knowledge. And just as it is not the affair of science, as such, or even of logic (the theory of science) to justify this presupposition of science, or to do more than show its presence in intellectual experience, so it is not the business of conduct, or even of ethics (the theory of conduct) to justify what we have termed the 'ethical postulate'. In each case the further inquiry belongs to metaphysics.

XLI.

Does the End Proposed Serve as a Criterion of Conduct?

We have now concluded that an end which may be termed indifferently 'The Realization of Individuality', 'The Performance of Specific Functions', 'The Satisfaction of Interests', 'The Realization of a Community of Individuals' is the moral end. Will this end serve the two aims (see Sec. XVI) required of a criterion, or standard: (1) Will it unify individual conduct? (2) Will it afford a common good? We have just been endeavoring to show that it does both of these things; that as the realization of one's specific capacity, it unifies individual conduct, and that, as the performance of function, it serves to satisfy the entire community. To take up just these points, accordingly, would involve a repetition of what has been said, and we shall therefore take up instead some aspects of the individual and social unity of conduct, not already considered.

1. The System of Individual Conduct. We must be careful not to interpret the idea of specific function too rigidly or abstractly. It does not mean that each one has some supreme mission in life to which everything else must be sacrificed--that a man is to be an artist, or a soldier, or a student, or a day-laborer and nothing else. On the contrary, the idea of function is that which comprehends all the various sides of life, and it cannot be narrowed below the meaning we have already given: the due adjustment of capacity and surroundings. Wherever there is any capacity or any circumstance, no matter how trivial, there is something included in the exercise of function, and, therefore to be satisfied--according to its place, of course, in the whole of life. Amusements and all the minor details of life are included within the scope of morality. They are elements in the exercise of function, and their insignificance and triviality does not exclude them from the grasp of duty and of the good. It is a mistake to suppose that because it is optional or indifferent--as it constantly is--what acts among the minor details of life are to be done or left undone, or unimportant whether they are done or left undone at all, therefore such acts have no moral value. Morality consists in treating them just as they are--if they are slight or trivial they are to be performed as slight and trivial. Morality does not simply permit the performance of such acts, but demands it. To try to make, in the interests of duty, a serious matter out of every detail of life would be immoral--as much so, in kind, as to make light of momentous matters.

See Alexander, Op. cit. pp. 53-54.

Bradley, Op. cit., pp, 194-197.

Consider, also, how this conception of the end stands in definite relation to concrete acts; how it explains the possibility of decision as to whether this or that proposed act is right. We do not have to trace the connection of the act with some end beyond, as pleasure, or abstract law. We have only to analyze the _act itself_. We have certain definite and wholly concrete facts; the given capacity of the person at the given moment, and his given surroundings. The judgment as to the nature of these facts is, in and of itself, a judgment as to the act to be done. The question is not: What is the probability that this act will result in the balance of maximum pleasure; it is not what general rule can we hunt up under which to bring this case. It is simply: _What is this case?_ The moral act is not that which satisfies some far-away principle, hedonistic or transcendental. It is that which meets the present, actual situation. Difficulties indeed, arise, but they are simply the difficulty of resolving a complex case; they are intellectual, not moral. The case made out, the moral end stands forth. No extraneous manipulation, to bring the case under some foreign end, is required.

And this suggests the elasticity of the criterion. In fact moral conduct is entirely individualized. It is where, when, how and of whom. There has been much useless discussion as to the absolute or relative character of morals--useless because the terms absolute and relative are not defined. If absolute is taken to mean immobile and rigid, it is anything but desirable that morals should be absolute. If the physical world is a scene of movement, in which there is no rest, it is a poor compliment to pay the moral world to conceive of it as static and lifeless. A rigid criterion in a world of developing social relations would speedily prove no criterion at all. It would be an abstract rule, taking no account of the individualized character of each act; its individuality of capacity and of surroundings, of time, place and relationships involved. A truly absolute criterion is one which adjusts itself to each case according to the specific nature of the case; one which moves with the moving world. On the other hand, if relative means uncertain in application, changing in time and place without reason for change in the facts themselves, then certainly the criterion is not relative. If it means taking note of all concrete relations involved, it _is_ relative. The absoluteness, in fine, of the standard of action consists not in some rigid statement, but in never-failing application. Universality here, as elsewhere, resides not in a thing, but in a way, a method of action. The absolute standard is the one applicable to all deeds, and the conception of the exercise of function is thus absolute, covering all conduct from the mainly impulsive action of the savage to the most complex reaches of modern life.

Aristotle's well known theory of the 'mean' seems to have
its bearing here. "It is possible," he says (Peters' trans.
of Ethics, p. 46), "to feel fear, confidence, desire,
anger, pity, and generally to be affected pleasantly
and painfully, either too much or too little--in either
case wrongfully; but to be affected thus at the right
_times_, and on the right _occasions_, and toward the
right _persons_, and with the right _object_ and in the
right _fashions_, is the mean course and the best course,
and these are characteristics of virtue." The right time,
occasion, person, purpose and fashion--what is it but the
complete individualization of conduct in order to meet
the whole demands of the whole situation, instead of some
abstraction? And what else do we mean by fit, due, proper,
right action, but that which just hits the mark, without
falling short or deflecting, and, to mix the metaphor,
without slopping over?

2. The system of social conduct, or common good. Moral conduct springs from the faith that all right action is social and its purpose is to justify this faith by working out the social values involved. The term 'moral community' can mean only a unity of action, made what it is by the co-operating activities of diverse individuals. There is unity in the work of a factory, not in spite of, but _because of_ the division of labor. Each workman forms the unity not by doing the same that everybody else does, or by trying to do the whole, but by doing his specific part. The unity is the one activity which their varied activities make. And so it is with the moral activity of society and the activities of individuals. The more individualized the functions, the more perfect the unity. (See section LII.)

The exercise of function by an agent serves, then, both to define and to unite him. It makes him a _distinct_ social member at the same time that it makes him a _member_. Possession of peculiar capacities, and special surroundings mark one person off from another and make him an individual; and the due adjustment of capacities to surroundings (in the exercise of function) effects, therefore, the realization of individuality--the realization of what we specifically are as distinct from others. At the same time, this distinction is not isolation; the exercise of function is the performing of a special _service_ without which the social whole is defective. Individuality means not separation, but defined position in a whole; special aptitude in constituting the whole.

We are now in a position to take up the consideration of the two other fundamental ethical conceptions--obligation and freedom. These ideas answer respectively to the two sides of the exercise of function. On the one hand, the performing of a function realizes the social whole. Man is thus 'bound' by the relations necessary to constitute this whole. He is subject to the conditions which the existence and growth of the social unity impose. He is, in a word, under _obligation_; the performance of his function is duty owed to the community of which he is a member.

But on the other hand, activity in the way of function realizes the individual; it is what makes him an individual, or distinct person. In the performance of his own function the agent satisfies his own interests and gains power. In it is found his _freedom_.

Obligation thus corresponds to the _social_ satisfaction, freedom to the _self_-satisfaction, involved in the exercise of function; and they can no more be separated from each other than the correlative satisfaction can be. One has to realize himself as a member of a community. In this fact are found both freedom and duty.