Handbook of Ethical Theory - George Stuart Fullerton (chrome ebook reader txt) 📗
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(4) It appeals to the reason of the race—the reason appropriate to the race as enlightened and freed from the shackles of local prejudice and restricted sympathy.
(5) It recognizes that man can give expression to his nature, can satisfy his desires and exercise his reason, only as aided by his physical and social environment. It emphasizes the necessity of a certain reverence for the actual historical development of human societies, with their institutions. Such institutions are the embodiment of reason—not pure reason, but reason struggling to get itself expressed as it can. He who would legislate for man independently of such institutions has left the solid earth and man far behind. He is suspended in the void.
86. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CIVILIZATION.—Civilizations differ; some are more material, laying stress upon man’s conquest of his material environment. Others exhibit a greater appreciation of idealistic elements, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, the cultivation of the fine arts, the development of humanitarian sentiment. For civilization in general it is not necessary to advance an argument. But there are elements in many civilizations which the thoughtful man may feel called upon to defend.
Civilization, taken generally, scarcely needs a labored justification because it is only in a civilization of some kind or other that we can look for a guarantee of the broad social will, for the reign of reason. Undeveloped man is at the mercy of nature; he is the sport of history. Where developed man can raise his voice, man possessed of power and capable of taking broad views of things, the rule of reason may be set up. A deliberate attempt may be made to recognize many wills, harmonize discords. Order may be brought out of chaos, and the limits of the realm within the borders of which order reigns may be indefinitely extended.
Such is the general ethical justification for the rise of a civilization. It is an expression of, and an instrument for the realization of, the broader social will. That a given civilization may be imperfect in both respects has been made clear in the last chapter. In the light of the general justification for civilization many questions may be raised touching this or that element in civilizations as we observe them.
Thus, it may be pointed out that as man progresses in civilization he calls into being a multitude of new wants, many of which may have to remain unsatisfied. [Footnote: Compare chapter xxx, Sec 142.] It may be asserted that literature, art and science are, in fact, cherished as though they were ends in themselves, and not means called into existence to serve the interests of man. Absorbing as it may be to him, how can the philologist prove that his science is useful to humanity either present or prospective? How shall the astronomer, who may frankly admit that he cannot conceive that nine tenths of the work with which he occupies himself can ever be of any actual use to anyone, justify himself in devoting his life to it? Shall a curiosity, which seems to lead nowhere, be satisfied? And if so, on what ground?
Moreover, every civilization recognizes that some wills are to be given a more unequivocal recognition than others. Inequality is the rule. A man does not put his own children upon a level with those of his neighbor. Even in the most democratic of states men do not stand upon the same level. In dealing with our own fellows we do not employ the same weights and measures as in dealing with foreigners. Who loses his appetite for his breakfast when he reads that there have been inundations in China or that an African tribe has come under the “protection” of a race of another color? The white man has added to his burden—the burden of economic advantage present or prospective—and we find it as it should be. Finally, when we bring within our horizon the “interests” of humbler sentient creatures, we see that they are unhesitatingly subordinated to our own. Some attention is paid to them in civilized communities. They are recognized, not merely by custom and public opinion, but, to some degree, even by law. Men are punished for treating certain animals in certain ways. But why? Have the animals rights? There is no topic within the sphere of morals upon which moralists speak with more wavering and uncertain accents. [Footnote: See chapter XXX, Sec 141.]
I know of no way in which such problems as the above can be approached other than by the appeal to reason, as reason has been understood in the pages preceding. The reign of reason implies the recognition of all wills, so far as such a recognition is within the bounds of possibility. The escape from chaos lies in the evolution of the enlightened social will. Man must be raised in the scale, in order that he may have control; control over himself, over other men, over the brutes. And he cannot rise except through the historical evolution of a social order. This implies the development of the capacities latent in man.
To decide that any of his capacities shall be allowed to remain dormant may threaten future development. To cut off certain arts and sciences as not palpably serving the interests of man is a dangerous thing. To ignore the actual history of man’s efforts to become a rational being, and to place, hence, all wills upon the one level, is to frustrate the desired end. It is not thus that the reign of reason can be established.
87. MAN’S MULTIPLE ALLEGIANCE.—We have seen that each man has his place in a social order. This order is the expression and the embodiment of the social will, which accepts him, protects him, gives him a share in the goods the community has so far attained, recognizes his individual will in that it accords to him rights, and prescribes his course of conduct, that is, defines his duties or obligations.
The social will is authoritative; it issues commands and enforces obedience. With its commands the individual may be in sympathy or he may not. But upon obedience the social will insists, and it compasses its ends by the bestowal of rewards or the infliction of punishment. The moral law to which man thus finds himself subject is something not wholly foreign to the nature of the individual. It has come into being as an expression of the nature of man. That nature the individual shares with his fellows.
Obedience to the social will would be a relatively simple matter were that will always unequivocally and unmistakably expressed, and did all the members of a community feel the pressure of the social will in the same manner and to the same degree. But the whole matter is indefinitely complicated by what may be called man’s multiple allegiance.
Organized societies do not consist of undifferentiated units. They are not mere aggregates, both are highly complex in their internal constitution. A conscientious man may feel that he owes duties to himself, to his immediate family, to his kindred, to his neighborhood, to his social class, to his political party, to his church, to his country, to its allies, to humanity. The social will does not bring its pressure to bear upon the man who holds one place in the social order just as it does upon him who holds another.
Nor are the injunctions laid upon a man always in harmony. The demands of family may seem to conflict with those of neighborhood or of profession; duties to the church may seem to conflict with duties to the state; patriotism may appear to be more or less in conflict with an interest in humanity taken broadly. That the individual should often approach in doubt and hesitation the decision as to what it is, on the whole, his duty to do, is not surprising. Nor is it surprising that individuals the most conscientious should find it impossible to be at one on the subject of rights and duties. Two men may agree perfectly that it is right to “do good,” and be quite unable to agree just what good it is right to do now, or with whom one should make a beginning.
88. THE APPEAL TO REASON.—Were there no appeal save to the social will as it happens to make its pressure felt upon this person or that, in this situation or that, there could be no issue to dispute. Dispute would be useless and sheer dogmatism would prevail. But there is such an appeal and men do make it, where they are in any degree enlightened. It is the appeal to Reason.
He who says: “I have especial rights, just because I am Smith, and so has my father, because he is my father,” has no ground of argument with Jones, who says: “I have especial rights because I am Jones, and so has my father, because he is my father.” Upon such a basis, or lack of basis, all discussion becomes fatuous. But if Smith and Jones agree that duties to self should only within limits be recognized, and that duties to family have their place upon the larger background of the will of the state, they may, at least, begin to talk.
The multiple allegiance of the individual does not mean that a man is subject to a multitude of independent masters whose several claims have no relation to one another. An appeal may be made from lower to higher.
We have seen that, in the organization of a given society, the social will may be imperfectly expressed. It may come about that the place in the social order assigned to a man cramps and pains him, or forces him to exertions which seem intolerable. He may passively accept it, or he may set himself in opposition to the social will as it is, appealing to a better social will. The fact that an individual finds himself out of harmony with given aspects of the social will characteristic of his age and country is no proof that he desires to set himself up in opposition to the social will in general.
In a given instance, he may be, from the standpoint of existing law, a criminal. Yet he may reverence the law above his fellows. His aberrations need not be arbitrary wanderings, prompted by selfish impulses. He may leave the beaten track because he does not approve of it, which is a very different thing from disliking it. Some will judge him to be a pestilent fellow; some will rate him as a reformer, a prophet, perhaps a martyr. Neither judgment is of the least value so long as it reflects merely the tastes or prejudices of the individual. Each must justify itself before the bar of reason, if it would have a respectful hearing. A reason must be given for conservatism and a reason must be given for reform.
89. THE ETHICS OF REASON AND THE VARYING MORAL CODES.—Several advantages may be claimed for the ethical doctrine I have been advocating:
(1) It gives a relative justification to the varying moral codes of communities of men in the past and in the present. A code may, even when imperfect from some higher point of view, fit well a community at a given stage of its development. It may be a man’s duty to obey its injunctions, even where they are not seen to be the wisest possible. One reason for bowing to custom is that it is custom; one reason for obeying laws is that they are laws. They embody the permanence and stability of the social will, and have a prima facie claim to our reverence.
(2) In recognizing the social will as
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