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

immemorial quarrel between self-love and benevolence appears to be adjusted to the mutual satisfaction of both parties.

Is the reasoning unassailable? There are two steps in it which appear to demand a closer scrutiny. One is the transition from desire to capacity; the other, the assumption that he who follows an unselfish impulse may properly be said to aim at self-satisfaction, and to exercise no self-denial.

As to the first. Our desires may have their roots in our capacities, but desires and capacities are, nevertheless, not the same thing.

Men do actually strive to realize their desires—a desire is nothing else than such a striving for realization or satisfaction. But it cannot be said that men generally strive to realize their capacities, except to the limited degree in which their capacities may happen to be expressed in actual desires. Capacities may lie dormant, and the man in whom they lie dormant need not on that account feel dissatisfied, as does the man whose desires are not realized. Self-realization, as understood by the school of thinkers which advocates it, implies much more than the satisfaction of desire. It implies the multiplication of desires and their satisfaction. On what ground shall we persuade the contented egoist, who has but a handful of commonplace desires and finds it possible to satisfy most of them, that it is better to call into being a multitude of wants many of which will probably remain unrealized? He may point out that the divine discontent is apt to leave the idealist and the reformer as lean as Cassius. All of which does not prove that the self-realizationist is not right in exhorting men to develop their capacities in the direction of the pattern which he holds in view; but it does seem to prove that the path to self-realization, in this sense, is not necessarily the path to self-satisfaction. “The good” has come to mean more than that which satisfies desire. How shall we persuade men that it is their duty to make this good their end?

126. THE PROBLEM OF SELF-SACRIFICE.—As for the second point. He who makes his moral aim self-satisfaction can scarcely be expected to advocate self-sacrifice.

Accordingly, we find among self-realizationists, a tendency to repudiate altogether what may properly be called self-denial. “Anything conceived as good in such a way that the agent acts for the sake of it,” said Green, [Footnote: Prolegomena, Sec 92.] “must be conceived as his own good.” “A moment’s consideration will show,” writes Professor Fite, in his clear and attractive book, [Footnote: An Introductory Study of Ethics, chapter viii, Sec 5.] “that, for self-sacrifice in any absolute sense, no ground of obligation is conceivable. Unless I am in some way interested in the object [Footnote: I.e., unless I desire the object.] whose attainment is set before me as a duty, it seems to be psychologically impossible that I should ever strive for it.”

Now we do seem compelled to concede that, unless a man desires an end, he cannot will that end. Anything that is selected as an end, and striven for, must be desired. And the attainment of the end implies, of course, the satisfaction of that particular desire. But, admitting all this, is not the question left open whether some desires may not be sacrificed to others; and whether, indeed, a whole extensive system of desires may not, on occasion, be sacrificed to a single desire? In this case, may not the transaction properly be called self-sacrifice? Suppose the desire to serve one’s neighbor, if satisfied, prevents the realization of a multitude of other desires of the same agent. Is it certain that its satisfaction does not imply self-denial?

127. SELF-SATISFACTION AND SELF-SACRIFICE.—The argument to prove that it is not really self-sacrifice may follow divers paths.

Thus, it may be argued that, since the proper end of a rational being is his own permanent good, the sacrifice of such goods as do not conduce to this end is not self-sacrifice. Sensual pleasures, the satisfaction of vanity or ambition, the accomplishment of a vengeful purpose, an excessive preoccupation with one’s own interests as contrasted with those of others—such things as these, it is claimed, do not permanently satisfy. That the so-called man of pleasure is a man upon whom pleasures pall, and that he who seeks too earnestly to save his own life is apt to lose it, has been reiterated by a long line of professional and lay moralists from Buddha to Tolstoi. The refuge from the discontent arising out of the attempt to quench one’s thirst by sipping at transient delights has always been found in altruism under some guise. The self-realizationists may claim that certain things are given up in order that other things more permanently satisfying to the self may be attained, and may deny that this is any renunciation of self-satisfaction. [Footnote: GREEN, op. cit., Sec 176.]

Again. It may be argued that men’s interests do not conflict as widely as is commonly supposed. To be sure, two men may have to struggle with each other for the pleasure of eating a given apple, of making a pecuniary profit, of obtaining a coveted post, of being the first authority in a given science or art, of securing the affections of a particular woman. Here one man’s loss seems to be another man’s gain. But two men may enjoy seeing a child eat an apple, or a deserving man profit, or their common candidate win the election, or their favorite artist honored, or their beloved nephew accepted by the lady of his choice. If one desires certain things, and certain things only, there seems no reason why one’s desires should not be in harmony with those of others.

The things best worth having, it is claimed, do not admit of being competed for. [Footnote: GREEN, Prolegomena to Ethics, Sec Sec 244-245.] If my aim is unselfish devotion to humanity, how can I lose if my neighbor attains in the same running? Do virtuous men, in so far as they are virtuous, stand in each other’s light? Are there not as many prizes as there are competitors? As long as I remain in this field I may seek self-satisfaction without scruple. I satisfy another’s desire in satisfying my own. By benevolence I lose nothing.

The list of things which one may forego without self-sacrifice has been made a long one. Even the realization of capacities highly valued by cultivated men has been brought into it:

“No conflict,” writes Professor Seth, [Footnote: A Study of Ethical Principles, Part II, chapter ii, Sec 4, Edinburgh, 1911, p. 286.] “is possible between the ends of the individual and those of society. The individual may be called upon to sacrifice, for example, his opportunity of esthetic or intellectual culture; but in that very sacrifice lies his opportunity of moral culture, of true self-realization.”

128. CAN MORAL SELF-SACRIFICE BE A DUTY?—To this position one is tempted to demur until two questions have found a satisfactory answer:

1. Is it true that there is no sacrifice of self-realization or self-satisfaction, properly so called, where all other desires and impulses are sacrificed to the one desire to do right?

2. Is it not conceivable, at least, that obedience to an unselfish impulse may result even in the sacrifice of the opportunities of moral culture in general? Can it, then, be called self-realization?

Touching the first question it may plausibly be maintained that the desires of the self are many and various, and that the satisfaction of an altruistic impulse may imply the sacrifice of so many of them that the self may very doubtfully be said to attain to permanent satisfaction when the impulse is realized. Aristotle’s hero, who, in dying for his country, chooses the more “honorable” for himself, [Footnote: Ethics, Book IX, chapter viii, Sec 12.] can hardly be said in that one act to have accomplished a state of permanent satisfaction or well-being for the self whose being was, in that act, brought to an abrupt termination. Certain Stoics seem to have taught that virtue is its own adequate reward and that nothing else matters; but this has not been the verdict of moralists generally. Paley, who writes like an unblushing egoist, [Footnote: See Sec 96.] we may pass over; but even Kant, a thinker of a very different complexion, appears to regard the mere doing of a right act as not a sufficient reward for the doer. He looks for the act to be crowned with happiness in a life to come, thus saving it from being mere self-sacrifice.

The second question one approaches with some hesitation. “No moralist,” writes Professor Sidgwick, [Footnote: The Methods of Ethics, Introduction.] “has ever directed an individual to promote the virtue of others except in so far as this promotion is compatible with, or rather involved in, the complete realization of virtue in himself.” It appears rash to admit to be a duty that which as high an authority as Sidgwick maintains no moralist has ever ventured to advise. Still, it is permissible to adduce an illustration taken from actual life, and to ask the reader to form his opinion independently.

A girl, anxious to provide her younger sister with a better lot, enters a factory and gives up her life to labor of a monotonous and mind-destroying character, amid sordid and more or less degrading surroundings. The act is a heroic one, but is it clear that it conduces to the self-realization, not of the sister, but of the agent herself? The influence of surroundings counts for much. High impulses may, under such pressure, come to be repressed.

“Capacity for the nobler feelings,” writes Mill, [Footnote: Utilitarianism, chapter iii] “is in most natures a very tender plant, easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere want of sustenance; and in the majority of young persons it speedily dies away if the occupations to which their position in life has devoted them, and the society into which it has thrown them, are not favorable to keeping that higher capacity in exercise. Men lose their high aspirations as they lose their intellectual tastes, because they have not time or opportunity for indulging them; and they addict themselves to inferior pleasures, not because they deliberately prefer them, but because they are either the only ones to which they have access, or the only ones they are any longer capable of enjoying.”

In other words, one may put oneself into a situation in which self-realization appears to be made a most difficult and problematic goal. Nor does it seem inconceivable that one should do this for the sake of another’s good. Hence, even if we restrict the meaning of the word “self-sacrifice” to the sacrifice of the “real” or moral self, the impossibility of self-sacrifice scarcely appears to have been proved; the impossibility of a conflict between the ends of the individual and of society does not appear to be indubitably established.

129. SELF-SACRIFICE AND THE IDENTITY OF SELVES.—Can it be maintained upon any other grounds than those adduced above? One line of argument remains open to us. We may maintain that, while two bodies are two because they occupy two portions of space, two minds, as not in space, cannot thus be held apart, and we may conclude that “the many individuals composing the race are not really many, but one.” [Footnote: Fite, An Introductory Study of Ethics, chapter xii.] I suppose that he who can take this position will find it natural to argue that any act which serves the interests of any self must be regarded as serving the interests of every self, and thus cannot be considered as sacrificing the interests of any self.

To these transcendental heights, however, comparatively few will be able to climb. To men generally it will still appear that Peter’s love to Paul is not identical with Peter’s love to Peter; and that Peter may act in