The Data of Ethics

Beginning with the first of these two statements, which concerns Geometry, I must confess myself surprised to find my propositions called into question; and after full consideration I remain at a loss to understand Mr. Sidgwick's mode of viewing the matter. When, in a sentence preceding those quoted above, I remarked on the impossibility of solving "mathematically a series of problems respecting crooked lines and broken-backed curves," it never occurred to me that I should be met by the direct assertion that "Geometry does not refuse to deal" with "the most irregular line." Mr. Sidgwick states that an irregular line, say such as a child makes in scribbling, has "definite spatial relations." What meaning does he here give to the word "definite?" If he means that its relations to space at large are definite in the sense that by an infinite intelligence they would be definable, the reply is that to an infinite intelligence all spatial relations would be definable: there could be no indefinite spatial relations – the word "definite" thus ceasing to mark any distinction. If, on the other hand, when saying that an irregular line has "definite spatial relations," he means relations knowable definitely by human intelligence, there still comes the question, how is the word "definite" to be understood? Surely anything distinguished as definite admits of being defined; but how can we define an irregular line? And if we cannot define the irregular line itself, how can we know its "spatial relations" definite? And how, in the absence of definition, can Geometry deal with it? If Mr. Sidgwick means that it can be dealt with by the "method of limits," then the reply is that in such case, not the line itself is dealt with geometrically, but certain definite lines artificially put in quasi-definite relations to it, the indefinite becomes cognizable only through the medium of the hypothetically definite.

Turning to the second illustration, the rejoinder to be made is that in so far as it concerns the relations between the ideal and the real, the analogy drawn does not shake but strengthens my argument. For whether considered under its geometrical or under its dynamical aspect, and whether considered in the necessary order of its development or in the order historically displayed, Astronomy shows us throughout that truths respecting simple, theoretically-exact relations, must be ascertained before truths respecting the complex and practically inexact relations that actually exist can be ascertained. As applied to the interpretation of planetary movements, we see that the theory of cycles and epicycles was based on pre-existing knowledge of the circle: the properties of an ideal curve having been learned, a power was acquired of giving some expression to the celestial motions. We see that the Copernican interpretation expressed the facts in terms of circular movements otherwise distributed and combined. We see that Kepler's advance from the conception of circular movements to the conception of elliptic movements was made possible by comparing the facts as they are with the facts as they would be were the movements circular. We see that the subsequently-learned deviations from elliptic movements were learned only through the presupposition that the movements are elliptical. And we see, lastly, that even now predictions concerning the exact positions of planets, after taking account of perturbations, imply constant references to ellipses that are regarded as their normal or average orbits for the time being. Thus, ascertainment of the actual truths has been made possible only by preascertainment of certain ideal truths. To be convinced that by no other course could the actual truths have been ascertained, it needs only to suppose any one saying that it did not concern him, as an astronomer, to know anything about the properties of circles and ellipses, but that he had to deal with the Solar System as it exists, to which end it was his business to observe and tabulate positions and directions and to be guided by the facts as he found them.

So, too, is it if we look at the development of dynamical astronomy. The first proposition in Newton's Principia deals with the movement of a single body round a single center of force; and the phenomena of central motion are first formulated in a case which is not simply ideal, but in which there is no specification of the force concerned: detachment from the real is the greatest possible. Again, postulating a principle of action conforming to an ideal law, the theory of gravitation deals with the several problems of the Solar System in fictitious detachment from the rest; and it makes certain fictitious assumptions, such as that the mass of each body concerned is concentrated in its center of gravity. Only later, after establishing the leading truths by this artifice of disentangling the major factors from the minor factors, is the theory applied to the actual problems in their ascending degrees of complexity; taking in more and more of the minor factors. And if we ask whether the dynamics of the Solar System could have been established in any other way, we see that here, too, simple truths holding under ideal conditions, have to be ascertained before real truths existing under complex conditions can be ascertained.

The alleged necessary precedence of Absolute Ethics over Relative Ethics is thus, I think, further elucidated. One who has followed the general argument thus far, will not deny that an ideal social being may be conceived as so constituted that his spontaneous activities are congruous with the conditions imposed by the social environment formed by other such beings. In many places, and in various ways, I have argued that conformably with the laws of evolution in general, and conformably with the laws of organization in particular, there has been, and is, in progress, an adaptation of humanity to the social state, changing it in the direction of such an ideal congruity. And the corollary before drawn and here repeated, is that the ultimate man is one in whom this process has gone so far as to produce a correspondence between all the promptings of his nature and all the requirements of his life as carried on in society. If so it is a necessary implication that there exists an ideal code of conduct formulating the behavior of the completely adapted man in the completely evolved society. Such a code is that here called Absolute Ethics as distinguished from Relative Ethics – a code the injunctions of which are alone to be considered as absolutely right in contrast with those that are relatively right or least wrong; and which, as a system of ideal conduct, is to serve as a standard for our guidance in solving, as well as we can, the problems of real conduct.

§ 105. A clear conception of this matter is so important that I must be excused for bringing in aid of it a further illustration, more obviously appropriate as being furnished by organic science instead of by inorganic science. The relation between morality proper and morality, as commonly conceived, is analogous to the relation between physiology and pathology; and the course usually pursued by moralists is much like the course of one who studies pathology without previous study of physiology.

Physiology describes the various functions which, as combined, constitute and maintain life; and in treating of them it assumes that they are severally performed in right ways, in due amounts, and in proper order; it recognizes only healthy functions. If it explains digestion, it supposes that the heart is supplying blood and that the visceral nervous system is stimulating the organs immediately concerned. If it gives a theory of the circulation, it assumes that blood has been produced by the combined actions of the structures devoted to its production, and that it is properly ærated. If the relations between respiration and the vital processes at large are interpreted, it is on the presupposition that the heart goes on sending blood, not only to the lungs and to certain nervous centers, but to the diaphragm and intercostal muscles. Physiology ignores failures in the actions of these several organs. It takes no account of imperfections, it neglects derangements, it does not recognize pain, it knows nothing of vital wrong. It simply formulates that which goes on as a result of complete adaptation of all parts to all needs. That is to say, in relation to the inner actions constituting bodily life, physiological theory has a position like that which ethical theory, under its absolute form as above conceived, has to the outer actions constituting conduct. The moment cognizance is taken of excess of function, or arrest of function, or defect of function, with the resulting evil, physiology passes into pathology. We begin now to take account of wrong actions in the inner life analogous to the wrong actions in the outer life taken account of by ordinary theories of morals.

The antithesis thus drawn, however, is but preliminary. After observing the fact that there is a science of vital actions normally carried on, which ignores abnormal actions, we have more especially to observe that the science of abnormal actions can reach such definiteness as is possible to it only on condition that the science of normal actions has previously become definite; or rather, let us say that pathological science depends for its advances on previous advances made by physiological science. The very conception of disordered action implies a preconception of well-ordered action. Before it can be decided that the heart is beating faster or slower than it should its healthy rate of beating must be learned; before the pulse can be recognized as too weak or too strong, its proper strength must be known, and so throughout. Even the rudest and most empirical ideas of diseases, pre-suppose ideas of the healthy states from which they are deviations, and, obviously, the diagnosis of diseases can become scientific only as fast as there arises scientific knowledge of organic actions that are undiseased.

Similarly, then, is it with the relation between absolute morality, or the law of perfect right in human conduct, and relative morality which, recognizing wrong in human conduct, has to decide in what way the wrong deviates from the right, and how the right is to be most nearly approached. When, formulating normal conduct in an ideal society, we have reached a science of absolute ethics, we have simultaneously reached a science which, when used to interpret the phenomena of real societies in their transitional states, full of the miseries due to non-adaptation (which we may call pathological states) enables us to form approximately true conclusions respecting the natures of the abnormalities, and the courses which tend most in the direction of the normal.

§ 106. And now let it be observed that the conception of ethics thus set forth, strange as many will think it, is one which really lies latent in the beliefs of moralists at large. Though not definitely acknowledged it is vaguely implied in many of their propositions.

From early times downward we find in ethical speculations, references to the ideal man, his acts, his feelings, his judgments. Well-doing is conceived by Socrates as the doing of "the best man," who, "as a husbandman, performs well the duties of husbandry; as a surgeon, the duties of the medical art; in political life, his duty toward the commonwealth." Plato, in Minos, as a standard to which State law should conform, "postulates the decision of some ideal wise man," and in Laches the wise man's knowledge of good and evil is supposed to furnish the standard: disregarding "the maxims of the existing society" as unscientific, Plato regards as the proper guide, that "Idea of the Good which only a philosopher can ascend to." Aristotle (Eth. Bk. iii. ch. 4), making the decisions of the good man the standard, says: "For the good man judges everything rightly, and in every case the truth appears so to him… And, perhaps, the principal difference between the good and the bad man is that the good man sees the truth in every case, since he is, as it were, the rule and measure of it." The Stoics, too, conceived of "complete rectitude of action" as that "which none could achieve except the wise man" – the ideal man. And Epicurus had an ideal standard. He held the virtuous state to be "a tranquil, undisturbed, innocuous, non-competitive fruition, which approached most nearly to the perfect happiness of the gods," who "neither suffered vexation in themselves nor caused vexation to others."12

If, in modern times, influenced by theological dogmas concerning the fall and human sinfulness, and by a theory of obligation derived from the current creed, moralists have less frequently referred to an ideal, yet references are traceable. We see one in the dictum of Kant – "Act according to the maxim only, which you can wish, at the same time, to become a universal law." For this implies the thought of a society in which the maxim is acted upon by all and universal benefit recognized as the effect: there is a conception of ideal conduct under ideal conditions. And though Mr. Sidgwick, in the quotation above made from him, implies that Ethics is concerned with man as he is, rather than with man as he should be; yet, in elsewhere speaking of Ethics as dealing with conduct as it should be, rather than with conduct as it is, he postulates ideal conduct and indirectly the ideal man. On his first page, speaking of Ethics along with Jurisprudence and Politics, he says that they are distinguished "by the characteristic that they attempt to determine not the actual but the ideal – what ought to exist, not what does exist."

It requires only that these various conceptions of an ideal conduct, and of an ideal humanity, should be made consistent and definite, to bring them into agreement with the conception above set forth. At present such conceptions are habitually vague. The ideal man having been conceived in terms of the current morality, is thereupon erected into a moral standard by which the goodness of actions may be judged; and the reasoning becomes circular. To make the ideal man serve as a standard, he has to be defined in terms of the conditions which his nature fulfills – in terms of those objective requirements which must be met before conduct can be right; and the common defect of these conceptions of the ideal man is that they suppose him out of relation to such conditions.

All the above references to him, direct or indirect, imply that the ideal man is supposed to live and act under existing social conditions. The tacit inquiry is, not what his actions would be under circumstances altogether changed, but what they would be under present circumstances. And this inquiry is futile for two reasons. The co-existence of a perfect man and an imperfect society is impossible; and could the two co-exist, the resulting conduct would not furnish the ethical standard sought.

In the first place, given the laws of life as they are, and a man of ideal nature cannot be produced in a society consisting of men having natures remote from the ideal. As well might we expect a child of English type to be borne among Negroes, as expect that among the organically immoral, one who is organically moral will arise. Unless it be denied that character results from inherited structure, it must be admitted that since, in any society, each individual descends from a stock which, traced back a few generations, ramifies everywhere through the society, and participates in its average nature, there must, notwithstanding marked individual diversities, be preserved such community as prevents any one from reaching an ideal form while the rest remain far below it.

In the second place, ideal conduct such as ethical theory is concerned with, is not possible for the ideal man in the midst of men otherwise constituted. An absolutely just or perfectly sympathetic person, could not live and act according to his nature in a tribe of cannibals. Among people who are treacherous and utterly without scruple, entire truthfulness and openness must bring ruin. If all around recognize only the law of the strongest, one whose nature will not allow him to inflict pain on others, must go to the wall, There requires a certain congruity between the conduct of each member of a society and other's conduct. A mode of action entirely alien to the prevailing modes of action cannot be successfully persisted in – must eventuate in death of self, or posterity, or both.

Hence it is manifest that we must consider the ideal man as existing in the ideal social state. On the evolution hypothesis, the two presuppose one another; and only when they co-exist can there exist that ideal conduct which Absolute Ethics has to formulate, and which Relative Ethics has to take as the standard by which to estimate divergencies from right, or degrees of wrong.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SCOPE OF ETHICS

§ 107. At the outset it was shown that as the conduct with which Ethics deals is a part of conduct at large, conduct at large must be understood before this part can be understood. After taking a general view of conduct, not human only but sub-human, and not only as existing but as evolving, we saw that Ethics has for its subject-matter the most highly-evolved conduct as displayed by the most highly-evolved being, Man – is a specification of those traits which his conduct assumes on reaching its limit of evolution. Conceived thus as comprehending the laws of right living at large, Ethics has a wider field than is commonly assigned to it. Beyond the conduct commonly approved or reprobated as right or wrong, it includes all conduct which furthers or hinders, in either direct or indirect ways, the welfare of self or others.

As foregoing chapters in various places imply, the entire field of Ethics includes the two great divisions, personal and social. There is a class of actions directed to personal ends, which are to be judged in their relations to personal well-being, considered apart from the well-being of others: though they secondarily affect fellow-men these primarily affect the agent himself, and must be classed as intrinsically right or wrong according to their beneficial or detrimental effects on him. There are actions of another class which affect fellow-men immediately and remotely, and which, though their results to self are not to be ignored, must be judged as good or bad mainly by their results to others. Actions of this last class fall into two groups. Those of the one group achieve ends in ways that do or do not unduly interfere with the pursuit of ends by others – actions which, because of this difference, we call respectively unjust or just. Those forming the other group are of a kind which influence the states of others without directly interfering with the relations between their labors and the results, in one way or the other – actions which we speak of as beneficent or maleficent. And the conduct which we regard as beneficent is itself subdivisible according as it shows us a self-repression to avoid giving pain, or an expenditure of effort to give pleasure – negative beneficence and positive beneficence.

Each of these divisions and sub-divisions has to be considered first as a part of Absolute Ethics and then as a part of Relative Ethics. Having seen what its injunctions must be for the ideal man under the implied ideal conditions, we shall be prepared to see how such injunctions are to be most nearly fulfilled by actual men under existing conditions.

§ 108. For reasons already pointed out, a code of perfect personal conduct can never be made definite. Many forms of life, diverging from one another in considerable degrees, may be so carried on in society as entirely to fulfill the conditions to harmonious co-operation. And if various types of men, adapted to various types of activities, may thus lead lives that are severally complete after their kinds, no specific statement of the activities universally required for personal well-being is possible.

But, though, the particular requirements to be fulfilled for perfect individual well-being, must vary along with variations in the material conditions of each society, certain general requirements have to be fulfilled by the individuals of all societies. An average balance between waste and nutrition has universally to be preserved. Normal vitality implies a relation between activity and rest falling within moderate limits of variation. Continuance of the society depends on satisfaction of those primarily personal needs which result in marriage and parenthood. Perfection of individual life hence implies certain modes of action which are approximately alike in all cases, and which, therefore, become part of the subject matter of Ethics.

That it is possible to reduce even this restricted part to scientific definiteness, can scarcely be said. But ethical requirements may here be to such extent affiliated upon physical necessities, as to give them a partially scientific authority. It is clear that between the expenditure of bodily substance in vital activities, and the taking in of materials from which this substance may be renewed, there is a direct relation. It is clear, too, that there is a direct relation between the wasting of tissue by effort, and the need for those cessations of effort during which repair may overtake waste. Nor is it less clear that between the rate of mortality and the rate of multiplication in any society, there is a relation such that the last must reach a certain level before it can balance the first, and prevent disappearance of the society. And it may be inferred that pursuits of other leading ends are, in like manner, determined by certain natural necessities, and from these derive their ethical sanctions. That it will ever be practicable to lay down precise rules for private conduct in conformity with such requirements, may be doubted. But the function of Absolute Ethics in relation to private conduct will have been discharged when it has produced the warrant for its requirements as generally expressed; when it has shown the imperativeness of obedience to them; and when it has thus taught the need for deliberately considering whether the conduct fulfills them as well may be.

Under the ethics of personal considered in relation to existing conditions, have to come all questions concerning the degree in which immediate personal welfare has to be postponed, either to ultimate personal welfare or to the welfare of others. As now carried on, life hourly sets the claims of present self against the claims of future self, and hourly brings individual interests face to face with the interests of other individuals, taken singly or as associated. In many of such cases the decisions can be nothing more than compromises; and ethical science, here necessarily empirical, can do no more than aid in making compromises that are the least objectionable. To arrive at the best compromise in any case, implies correct conceptions of the alternative results of this or that course. And, consequently in so far as the absolute ethics of individual conduct can be made definite, it must help us to decide between conflicting personal requirements, and also between the needs for asserting self and the needs for subordinating self.

§ 109. From that division of Ethics which deals with the right regulation of private conduct, considered apart from the effects directly produced on others, we pass now to that division of Ethics which, considering exclusively the effects of conduct on others, treats of the right regulation of it with a view to such effects.

The first set of regulations coming under this head are those concerning what we distinguish as justice. Individual life is possible only on condition that each organ is paid for its action by an equivalent of blood, while the organism as a whole obtains from the environment assimilable matters that compensate for its efforts; and the mutual dependence of parts in the social organism, necessitates that, alike for its total life and the lives of its units, there similarly shall be maintained a due proportion between returns and labors: the natural relation between work and welfare shall be preserved intact. Justice, which formulates the range of conduct and limitations to conduct hence arising, is at once the most important division of Ethics and the division which admits of the greatest definiteness. That principle of equivalence which meets us when we seek its roots in the laws of individual life, involves the idea of measure; and on passing to social life, the same principle introduces us to the conception of equity or equalness, in the relations of citizens to one another: the elements of the questions arising are quantitative, and hence the solutions assume a more scientific form. Though, having to recognize differences among individuals due to age, sex, or other cause, we cannot regard the members of a society as absolutely equal, and therefore cannot deal with problems growing out of their relations with that precision which absolute equality might make possible; yet, considering them as approximately equal in virtue of their common human nature, and dealing with questions of equity on this supposition, we may reach conclusions of a sufficiently definite kind.