Handbook of Ethical Theory - George Stuart Fullerton (chrome ebook reader txt) 📗

37. CONSCIOUSLY CHOSEN ENDS.—Our volitions, deliberate, less deliberate, and those verging upon what scarcely deserves the name of volition, weave themselves into complicated patterns, which find their expression in long series of the most varied activities. The nature of the pattern as a whole may be determined by the deliberate selection of an end, and to that the other choices which enter into the complex may be subordinate.

Thus, a man may decide that he can afford to give himself the pleasure of a long walk through the country before taking the train at the next town. During the course of the ramble he may make a number of more or less conscious decisions not incompatible with the purpose he originally embraced—to take this bit of road or that, to loiter in the shade, to climb a hill that he may enjoy a view, to hasten lest he find himself too late in arriving at his destination. These decisions may require little deliberation; they spring into being at the call of the moment, are not preceded by deliberation, and leave little trace in the memory. They may be made semi-consciously, and while the mind is largely occupied with other things, with thoughts of the past or the future, with other scenes suggested by the landscape, or with the flowers which skirt the road. Nevertheless, we would not hesitate to call them decisions.

May we apply the word in speaking of the single steps made by the traveler as he advances? His feet seem to move of themselves and to make no demands at all upon his attention.

Yet it is not strictly true to say that they move of themselves. They are under control, and the successive steps follow upon each other not without direction. They serve as expressions of the will to take the walk, and they are adjusted to the end consciously held in view. That attention is not fixed upon the individual steps does not remove them from the sphere of the voluntary, in a proper sense of the words. They are expressions of the man’s will, even if they be not the result of a conscious series of deliberations and decisions. Whether we shall use the term decision in connection with the single step is rather a question of verbal usage than of the determination of fact. We have seen that decisions shade down gradually, from those quite unmistakable and characteristic, to occurrences far less characteristic and more disputable. The consciousness of deliberation and decision does not disappear abruptly at some point in the series. It fades away, as the light of day gradually passes, through twilight, into the shades of night. And actions not directly recognizable as consciously voluntary may be obviously under voluntary control. They weave themselves, with actions more palpably voluntary and higher in the scale, into those complicated patterns determined by the conscious selection of an end. As long as they serve their purpose, and require no effort, they may remain inconspicuous and unconsidered. But, as soon as a check is met with, attention is directed upon them and they become the subject of conscious voluntary control.

38. ENDS NOT CONSCIOUSLY CHOSEN.—In the above illustration the end which determines the character of a long chain of actions has been deliberately chosen. It is a consciously selected end. When, however, we contemplate critically the lives of our fellowmen, we seem to become aware of the fact that many of them act in unconsciousness of the ultimate end upon which their actions converge. The attention is taken up with minor decisions, and takes no note of the permanent trend of the will.

Thus, the selfish man may be unaware of the significance of the whole series of choices which he makes in a day; the malicious man may not realize that he is animated by the settled purpose to injure his neighbors; one may be law-abiding without ever having resolved to obey the laws through the course of a life. If called upon to account for this or that subordinate decision, each may exhaust his ingenuity in assigning false causes, while ignoring the permanent attitude of the will revealed in the series of decisions as a whole and giving them what consistency they possess.

Hence, the choice of ends, as well as the adoption of means to the attainment of ends, may reveal itself either in conscious deliberate decisions, or in the working of obscure impulses which do not emerge into the light. Even in the latter case, we have not to do with what is wholly beyond the sphere of intelligent voluntary control. The selfish man may be made aware that he is selfish; the malicious man, that he is malicious; and each may deliberately take steps to remedy the defect revealed.

When we understand the word “will” in the broad sense indicated in the preceding pages, we see that a man’s habits may justly be regarded as expressions of the man’s will. That, through repetition, his actions have become almost automatic does not remove them from the sphere of the volitional. That he does not clearly see, or that he misconceives, the significance of his habits, and may acquiesce in them even though they be injurious to him, does not make them the less willed, so long as he follows them. It is only when he actively endeavors to control or modify a habit that he may be said to will its opposite.

39. THE CHOICE OF IDEALS.—Nor is it too much to bring under the head of willing the attitudes of approval and disapproval taken by man in contemplating certain occurrences, actual or possible, which lie beyond the confines of the field within which he can exercise control. The field of control, direct and indirect, is as we have seen a broad one, but it has its limits, and many of the things he would like to see accomplished or prevented lie without it.

A man’s will may be set upon the preservation of his health, he may strive to attain that end, and circumstances may condemn him to a life of invalidism. He would be healthy if he could, but his strivings are overruled. Or he may earnestly pursue the attainment of wealth, and may end in bankruptcy. He has the will to be rich, but that will is frustrated.

It is the same when we consider his attitude toward the decisions and actions of other men. By mere willing he cannot condition another’s choice. But by willing he can often influence indirectly the volitions of his fellows. He can enlighten or misinform, persuade or threaten, reward or punish. In many ways he can weight the scale of his neighbor’s mind. But such influences are not all-powerful, and only within limits can we bend other wills to follow a course prescribed for them by our own.

Nevertheless, even beyond those limits, the attitude of a man’s mind toward the actions of his neighbor may be a volitional one. His will may be for them or against them; he may approve or disapprove, command or prohibit. We know quite well that commands and prohibitions laid upon children and servants will not always be effective, yet we issue general commands and prohibitions, as though assuming unlimited control. It is quite in accordance with usage to speak of a man as willing an end, even where it is clearly recognized that the will to attain does not guarantee attainment. The man does what he can; could he do more he would do so; in his helplessness the attitude of the will persists unchanged.

It is obvious that, in this large sense of the word “will,” we may speak of a man as continuing to will or to approve a given end, even when he is not willing or approving anything, in a narrower sense of the words, at this or that moment. We speak of a man as inspired by the permanent will to be rich, although at many times during the day, and certainly during his hours of sleep, no act of volition with such an end in view has an actual existence.

No man always thinks of the permanent ends which he has selected as controls to his actions. They are selected, they pass from his mind, and, when they recur to it again, the selection is reaffirmed. But, whether he is actually thinking about the ends in question or not, the settled trend of his will is expressed in them.

This settled trend of the will, even when scarcely recognized by the man himself, may be vastly more significant than the passing individual decision, although the latter be accompanied by clear consciousness. In certain cases the latter is a true exponent of character, but not infrequently it is not. It may be the result of a whim, of an irrational impulse little congruous with a man’s nature. It may be the outcome of some misconception and in contradiction with what the man would will, if enlightened. The individual volition appears only to disappear; it may leave no apparent trace. The permanent will indicates a habit of mind, a way of acting, which may be expected to make its influence felt with the persistency of that which exerts a steady pressure. To refuse it the name of will seems arbitrary and unjustifiable.

In the permanent will is expressed the character of the man. This character is reflected in his ideals. Sometimes ideals are clearly recognized and deliberately chosen. Sometimes a man is little aware of the nature of the ideals which control his strivings. He may be said to choose, but to choose more or less blindly. But, whether he chooses with clear vision or without it, he may choose well or ill.