Practical Ethics Part 14

CHAPTER XXI.

Self.

Hitherto we have considered things, relations, persons, and inst.i.tutions outside ourselves as the objects which together const.i.tute our environment.

The self is not a new object, but rather the bond which binds together into unity all the experiences of life. It is their relation to this conscious self which gives to all objects their moral worth. Every act upon an object reacts upon ourselves. The virtues and vices, the rewards and penalties that we have been studying are the various reactions of conduct upon ourselves. This chapter then will be a comprehensive review and summary of all that has gone before. Instead of taking one by one the particular reactions which follow particular acts with reference to particular objects, we shall now look at conduct as a whole; regard our environment in its totality; and consider duty, virtue, and self in their unity.

THE DUTY.

+The duty we owe to ourselves is the realization of our capacities and powers in harmony with each other, and in proportion to their worth as elements in a complete individual and social life.+--We have within us the capacity for an ever increasing fullness and richness and intensity of life. The materials out of which this life is to be developed are ready to our hands in those objects which we have been considering. One way of conduct toward these objects, which we have called duty; one att.i.tude of mind and will toward them which we have called virtue, leads to those completions and fulfillments of ourselves which we have called rewards. Duty then to self; duty in its most comprehensive aspect, is the obligation which the existence of capacity within and material without imposes on us to bring the two together in harmonious relations, so as to realize the capacities and powers of ourselves and of others, and promote society's well being. In simpler terms our fundamental duty is to make the most of ourselves; and to become as large and genuine a part of the social world in which we live as it is possible for us to be.

THE VIRTUE.

+The habit of seeking to realize the highest capacities and widest relationships of our nature in every act is conscientiousness.

Conscience is our consciousness of the ideal in conduct and character.

Conscience is the knowledge of our duty, coupled as that knowledge always is with the feeling that we ought to do it.+--Knowledge of any kind calls up some feeling appropriate to the fact known. Knowledge that a given act would realize my ideal calls up the feeling of dissatisfaction with myself until that act is performed; because that is the feeling appropriate to the recognition of an unrealized yet attainable ideal. Conscience is not a mysterious faculty of our nature.

It is simply thought and feeling, recognizing and responding to the fact of duty, and reaching out toward virtue and excellence.

The objective worth of the deliverances and dictates of the conscience of the individual, depends on the degree of moral enlightenment and sensitiveness he has attained. The conscience of an educated Christian has a worth and authority which the conscience of the benighted savage has not. Since conscience is the recognition of the ideal of conduct and character, every new appreciation of duty and virtue gives to conscience added strength and clearness.

+The absolute authority of conscience.+--Relatively to the individual himself, at the time of acting, his own individual conscience is the final and absolute authority. The man who does what his conscience tells him, does the best that he can do. For he realizes the highest ideal that is present to his mind. A wiser man than he might do better than this man, acting according to his conscience, is able to do. But this man, with the limited knowledge and imperfect ideal which he actually has, can do no more than obey his conscience which bids him realize the highest ideal that he knows. The act of the conscientious man may be right or wrong, judged by objective, social standards. Judged by subjective standards, seen from within, every conscientious act is, relatively to the individual himself, a right act. We should spare no pains to enlighten our conscience, and make it the reflection of the most exalted ideals which society has reached. Having done this, conscience becomes to us the authoritative judge for us of what we shall, and what we shall not do. The light of conscience will be clear and pure, or dim and clouded, according to the completeness of our moral environment, training, and insight. But clear or dim, high or low, sensitive or dull, the light of conscience is the only light we have to guide us in the path of virtue. In hours of leisure and study it is our privilege to inform and clarify this consciousness of the ideal. That has been the purpose of the preceding pages. When the time for action comes, then, without a murmur, without an instant's hesitation, the voice of conscience should be implicitly obeyed. Conscientiousness is the form which all the virtues take, when viewed as determinations of the self. It is the a.s.sertion of the ideal of the self in its every act.

THE REWARD.

+Character the form in which the result of virtuous conduct is preserved.+--It is neither possible nor desirable to solve each question of conduct as it arises by conscious and explicit reference to rules and principles. Were we to attempt to do so it would make us prigs and prudes.

What then is the use of studying at such length the temptations and duties, the virtues and vices, with their rewards and penalties, if all these things are to be forgotten and ignored when the occasions for practical action arrive?

The study of ethics has the same use as the study of writing, grammar, or piano-playing. In learning to write we have to think precisely how each letter is formed, how one letter is connected with another, where to use capitals, where to punctuate and the like. But after we have become proficient in writing, we do all this without once thinking explicitly of any of these things. In learning to play the piano we have to count out loud in order to keep time correctly, and we are obliged to stop and think just where to put the finger in order to strike each separate note. But the expert player does all these things without the slightest conscious effort.

Still, though the particular rules and principles are not consciously present in each act of the finished writer or musician, they are not entirely absent. When the master of these arts makes a mistake, he recognizes it instantly, and corrects it, or endeavors to avoid its repet.i.tion. This shows that the rule is not lost. It has ceased to be before the mind as a distinct object of consciousness. It is no longer needed in that form for ordinary purposes. Instead, it has come to be a part of the mind itself--a way in which the mind works instinctively. As long as the mind works in conformity with the principle, it is not distinctly recognized, because there is no need for such recognition.

The principle comes to consciousness only as a power to check or restrain acts that are at variance with it.

It is in this way that the practical man carries with him his ethical principles. He does not stop to reason out the relation of duty and virtue to reward, or of temptation and vice to penalty, before he decides to help the unfortunate, or to be faithful to a friend, or to vote on election day. This trained, habitual will, causing acts to be performed in conformity to duty and virtue, yet without conscious reference to the explicit principles that underlie them, is character.

It is chiefly in the formation of character that the explicit recognition of ethical principles has its value. Character is a storage battery in which the power acquired by our past acts is acc.u.mulated and preserved for future use.

It is through this power of character, this tendency of acts of a given nature to repeat and perpetuate themselves, that we give unity and consistency to our lives. This also is the secret of our power of growth. As soon as one virtue has become habitual and enters into our character, we can leave it, trusting it in the hands of this unconscious power of self-perpetuation; and then we can turn the energy thus freed toward the acquisition of new virtues.

Day by day we are turning over more and more of our lives to this domain of character. Hence it is of the utmost importance to allow nothing to enter this almost irrevocable state of unconscious, habitual character that has not first received the approval of conscience, the sanction of duty, and the stamp of virtue. Character, once formed in a wrong direction, may be corrected. But it can be done only with the greatest difficulty, and by a process as hard to resolve upon as the amputation of a limb or the plucking out of an eye.

The greater part of the principles of ethics we knew before we undertook this formal study. We learned them from our parents; we picked them up in contact with one another in the daily intercourse of life. The value of our study will not consist so much in new truths learned, as in the clearer and sharper outlines which it will have given to some of the features of the moral ideal. The definite results of such a study we cannot mark or measure. Just as sunshine and rain come to the plants and trees, and then seem to vanish, leaving no visible or tangible trace behind; yet the plants and trees are different from what they were before, and have the heat and moisture stored up within their structure to burst forth into fresher and larger life; in like manner, though we should forget every formal statement that we have read, yet we could not fail to be affected by the incorporation within ourselves in the form of character of some of these principles of duty and virtue which we have been considering. It has been said: "Sow an act, and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny."

THE TEMPTATION.

+Pleasure not a reliable guide to conduct.+--The realization of capacity brings with it pleasure. The harmonious realization of all our powers would bring harmonious and permanent pleasure or happiness. Pleasure is always to be welcomed as a sign of health and activity. Other things being equal, the more pleasure we have the better. It is possible however to abstract the pleasure from the activity which gives rise to it, and make pleasure the end for which we act. This pursuit of pleasure for pleasure's sake is delusive and destructive. It is delusive, because the direct aim at pleasure turns us aside from the direct aim at objects. And when we cease to aim directly at objects, we begin to lose the pleasure and zest which only a direct pursuit of objects can produce. For instance, we all know that if we go to a picnic or a party thinking all the while about having a good time, and asking ourselves every now and then whether we are having a good time or not, we find the picnic or party a dreadful bore, and ourselves perfectly miserable. We know that the whole secret of having a good time on such occasions is to get interested in something else; a game, a boat-ride, anything that makes us forget ourselves and our pleasures, and helps us to lose ourselves in the eager, arduous, absorbing pursuit of something outside ourselves. Then we have a glorious time.

The direct pursuit of pleasure is destructive of character, because it judges things by the way they affect our personal feelings; which is a very shallow and selfish standard of judgment; and because it centers interest in the merely emotional side of our nature, which is peculiar to ourselves; instead of in the rational part of our nature which is common to all men, and unites us to our fellows.

Duty demands not the hap-hazard realization of this or that side of our nature. Yet this is what the pursuit of pleasure would lead to. Duty demands the realization of all our faculties, in harmony with each other, and in proportion to their worth. And to this proportioned and harmonious realization, pleasure, pure and simple, is no guide at all.

Hence, as Aristotle remarks, "In all cases we must be specially on our guard against pleasant things and against pleasure: for we can scarce judge her impartially." "Again, as the exercises of our faculties differ in goodness and badness, and some are to be desired and some to be shunned, so do the several pleasures differ; for each exercise has its proper pleasure. The pleasure which is proper to a good activity, then, is good, and that which is proper to one that is not good is bad." "As the exercises of the faculties vary, so do their respective pleasures."

To the same effect John Stuart Mill says that the pleasures which result from the exercise of the higher faculties are to be preferred. "It is better to be a human being dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied." Whether it is possible to stretch, and qualify, and attenuate the conception of pleasure so as to make it cover the ideal of human life, without having it, like a soap-bubble, burst in the process, is a question foreign to the practical purpose of this book. That pleasure, as ordinarily understood by plain people, is a treacherous, dangerous, and ruinous guide to conduct, moralists of every school declare. Pleasure is the most subtle and universal form of temptation. Pleasure is the accompaniment of all exercise of power. When it comes rightly it is to be accepted with thankfulness. We must remember however that the quality of the act determines the worth of the pleasure; and that the amount of pleasure does not determine the quality of the act. A pleasant act may be right, and it may be wrong. Whether we ought to do it or not must in every case be decided on higher grounds.

To the boy who says, "I should like to be something that would make me a great man, and very happy besides--something that would not hinder me from having a great deal of pleasure"--George Eliot represents "Romola"

as replying, "That is not easy, my Lillo. It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as for ourselves; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it that we can only tell it from pain by its being what we would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is good. And so, my Lillo, if you mean to act n.o.bly and seek to know the best things G.o.d has put within reach of men, you must learn to fix your mind on that end, and not on what will happen to you because of it. And remember, if you were to choose something lower, and make it the rule of your life to seek your own pleasure and escape from what is disagreeable, calamity might come just the same; and it would be calamity falling on a base mind, which is the one form of sorrow that has no balm in it, and that may well make a man say--It would have been better for me if I had never been born."

THE VICE OF DEFECT.

+The unscrupulous man acts as he happens to feel like acting.+--Whatever course of conduct presents itself as pleasant, or profitable, or easy, he adopts. Anything is good enough for him. He seeks to embody no ideal, aims consistently at no worthy end, acknowledges no duty, but simply yields himself a pa.s.sive instrument for l.u.s.t, or avarice, or cowardice, or falsehood to play upon. Refusing to be the servant of virtue he becomes the slave of vice. Disowning the authority of duty and the ideal, he becomes the tool of appet.i.te, the football of circ.u.mstance.

Unscrupulousness is the form of all the vices of defect, when viewed in relation to that absence of regard for realization of self, which is their common characteristic.

THE VICE OF EXCESS.

+The exclusive regard for self, in abstraction from those objects and social relationships through which alone the self can be truly realized, leads to formalism.+--Formalism keeps the law simply for the sake of keeping it. Conscientiousness, if it is wise and well-balanced, reverences the duties and requirements of the moral life, because these duties are the essential conditions of individual and social well-being.

The law is a means to well-being, which is the end. Formalism makes the law an end in itself; and will even sacrifice well-being to law, when the two squarely conflict.

+Extreme cases in which moral laws may be suspended.+--The particular duties, virtues, and laws which society has established and recognized are the expressions of reason and experience declaring the conditions of human well-being. As such they deserve our profoundest respect; our unswerving obedience. Still it is impossible for rules to cover every case. There are legitimate, though very rare, exceptions, even to moral laws and duties. For instance it is a duty to respect the property of others. Yet to save the life of a person who is starving, we are justified in taking the property of another without asking his consent.

To save a person from drowning, we may seize a boat belonging to another. To spread the news of a fire, we may take the first horse we find, without inquiring who is the owner. To save a sick person from a fatal shock, we may withhold facts in violation of the strict duty of truthfulness. To promote an important public measure, we may deliberately break down our health, spend our private fortune, and reduce ourselves to helpless beggary. Such acts violate particular duties. They break moral laws. And yet they all are justified in these extreme cases by the higher law of love; by the greater duty of devotion to the highest good of our fellow-men. The doctrine that "the end justifies the means" is a mischievous and dangerous doctrine. Stated in that unqualified form, it is easily made the excuse for all sorts of immorality. The true solution of the seeming conflict of duties lies in the recognition that the larger social good justifies the sacrifice of the lesser social good when the two conflict. One must remember, however, that the universal recognition of established duties and laws is itself the greatest social good; and only the most extreme cases can justify a departure from the path of generally recognized and established moral law.

These extreme cases when they occur, however, must be dealt with bravely. The form of law and rule must be sacrificed to the substance of righteousness and love when the two conflict. As Professor Marshall remarks in the chapter of his "History of Greek Philosophy" which deals with Socrates, "The highest activity does not always take the form of conformity to rule. There are critical moments when rules fail, when, in fact, obedience to rule would mean disobedience to that higher law, of which rules and formulae are at best only an adumbration."

There is nothing more contemptible than that timid, self-seeking virtue which will sacrifice the obvious well-being of others to save itself the pain of breaking a rule. There is nothing more pitiful than that self-righteous virtue which does right, not because it loves the right, still less because it loves the person who is affected by its action, but simply because it wants to keep its own sweet sense of self-righteousness unimpaired. Mrs. Browning gives us a clear example of this "harmless life, she called a virtuous life," in the case of the frigid aunt of "Aurora Leigh":

From that day, she did Her duty to me (I appreciate it In her own word as spoken to herself), Her duty, in large measure, well-pressed out, But measured always. She was generous, bland, More courteous than was tender, gave me still The first place,--as if fearful that G.o.d's saints Would look down suddenly and say, 'Herein You missed a point, I think, through lack of love.'

THE PENALTY.

+Just as continuity in virtue strengthens and unifies character and makes life a consistent and harmonious whole; so self-indulgence in vicious pleasures disorganizes a man's life and eats the heart out of him.+--Corrupt means literally broken. The corrupt man has no soundness, no solidity, no unity in his life. He cannot respect himself. Others cannot put confidence in him. There is no principle binding each part of his life to every other, and holding the whole together. The other words by which we describe such a life all spring from the same conception. We call such a person dissolute; and dissolute means literally separated, loosed, broken apart. We call him dissipated; and dissipated means literally scattered, torn apart, thrown away.

These forms of statement all point to the same fact, that the unscrupulous pleasure-seeker, the selfish, vicious man has no consistent, continuous, coherent life whatever. "The unity of his being," as Janet says, "is lost in the multiplicity of his sensations."

His life is a mere series of disconnected fragments. There is no growth, no development. There is nothing on which he can look with approval; no consistent career of devotion to worthy objective ends, the fruits of which can be witnessed in the improvement of the world in which he has lived, and stored up in the character which he has formed.

CHAPTER XXII.

G.o.d.