The Moral Economy Part 2

This is the characteristic temper of the modern {35} individualism, whether it be dominated by a bias for sense or a bias for reason.

Locke, like his forerunner, Bacon, is an individualist because it is the individual in his detachment from society that alone can be open-eyed and open-minded; who is qualified to carry on that "proper business of the understanding," "to think of everything just as it is in itself." [2] Descartes, although in habit of mind and speculative instinct he has so little in common with the Englishman, nevertheless finds in the individual's self-discipline and concentration the only hope of preserving the savor of the salt of knowledge. Thus he says:

I thought that the sciences contained in books, (such of them at least as are made up of probable reasonings, without demonstrations), composed as they are of the opinions of many different individuals ma.s.sed together, are farther removed from truth than the simple inferences which a man of good sense using his natural and unprejudiced judgment draws respecting the matters of his experience.[3]

Spinoza, who both abandoned the world and was abandoned by it, sought an individual philosophy of life that should be more universal than the opinion of the world on account of its greater truth. "Further reflection convinced me, that if I could really get to the root of the matter I should be leaving certain evils for a certain good." [4]

This was the impulse in which modern tolerance of individual opinion and appeal to {36} individual conscience originated. It was a protest not against order, but against the disheartening drag, the heavy and dull constraint, of an order externally imposed. Freedom was valued not for the sake of lawlessness, but for the sake of a clearer recognition of the proper laws of things, of the principles that lie in nature and civilization and control them inherently.

Individualism in this sense is not sceptical. Even a charge that existing codes of morality and systems of thought are largely matters of social habit, or rules devised by church and state to maintain an arbitrary and profitable power, does not justify the inference that there is no truth. For there is no dilemma between public tyranny and private caprice. On the contrary, it means that tyranny is itself a form of caprice, and that caprice in any form must give way before reason and experiment. Certain contemporary popular philosophers, such as Wells and Shaw, appear to believe that to repudiate the rigid conventions of the day means to abolish absolute distinctions utterly and fall back upon a general laxity and vagueness. But this is to throw out the baby with the bath. The evil in convention is the subst.i.tution of merely _habitual_ distinctions for real distinctions, and the only justification for an a.s.sault on convention is the bringing of such real distinctions to light.

{37}

The individualist virtually claims that an individual's belief, if it be critical, is ent.i.tled to precedence over public belief, simply because the individual mind is a better instrument of knowledge than the public mind. It is the individual mind that is more directly confronted with the evidence, more single and responsive.

Individualism is not, then, an appeal to private opinion in any disparaging sense. For, in so far as private opinion is independent and truthful in motive, concerning itself with its objects rather than with the social model of the day, it is self-corrective and tends inevitably toward the common truth. It is the opinion that is not really individual, but imitative, respectful of persons, generally submissive to ulterior motives of a social kind, that is private in the bad sense. Its privacy lies in its artificiality, in its partisanship, and in its remove from the open daylight of experience.

If, therefore, one must in moral matters finally rely on the individual's judgment, this in no way implies the breakdown of universal principles. It is neither necessary nor natural that individual judgment should bespeak whim, hasty impulse, or narrow self-interest. The guardian in Plato's _Republic_ was as much an individual as the merchant or the soldier.[5] In a sense he was more an individual than these, since he was not swayed by the crowd, but thought with freedom {38} and independence. Nevertheless his thought embraced the interests of the entire community, and comprehended the organization and forms of adjustment through which they all might live and thrive. In moral as in other matters the true appeal of individualism is to an intelligence which, though emanc.i.p.ated from convention, is on that very account committed to the general necessities that lie in the field it seeks to know.

In view of these considerations, then, we may p.r.o.nounce legitimate and hopeful the moral individualism of the time. It implies the recognition that there is a genuine ground for moral action, which may be brought home to any individual mind that will deal honestly and directly with the facts of life. Morality is not a useful fiction which must be protected against inquisitiveness and cherished in ignorance and servility; it is a body of compelling truth that will convince wherever there is a capacity to observe and reason. It requires no higher sanction than the individual, because the individual is society's organ of truth; because only in the individual mind is society open to rational conviction.

Lat.i.tudinarianism and tolerance in this sense bespeak a confidence in morality's ability to justify itself. At the same time they represent a protest against replacing the intrinsic truth of morality by the arbitrary standards of authority {39} and convention. Now, while there is little need in the present day of protecting individual judgment against encroachments of authority, there can be no doubt of the great need of protecting it against the more insidious encroachments of convention. This is peculiarly an age of publicity. The forces of suggestion and imitation operate on a scale unparalleled in the history of society. Standards and types readily acquire an almost irresistible prestige, simply through becoming established as models. And the sanction of opinion may be gained for almost any formula, from a fashion in hats to an article in theology. Convention can no longer be accounted conservative. It sanctions promiscuously usages as venerable as civilization itself, and as transient as the fad of the hour.

Democratic inst.i.tutions and universal educational privileges have bred a social ma.s.s intelligent and responsive enough to be modish, but lacking in discrimination and criticism.

The tyranny of opinion, the fear of being different, has long since been recognized as a serious hinderance to the development which political freedom and economic opportunity ought properly to stimulate.

But the moral blindness to which it gives rise has never, I think, been sufficiently emphasized. We require of business men only that measure of honesty that we {40} conventionally expect in that type of occupation. A politician is proverbially tricky and self-seeking. The artistic temperament would scarcely be recognized if it did not manifest itself in weakness and excess. It is as unreasonable to expect either tunefulness or humor in a musical comedy as to expect a statement of fact in an advertis.e.m.e.nt. In short, where any human activity is conventionalized, standards are arbitrarily fixed; and critical discernment grows dull if it does not altogether atrophy. It simply does not occur to the great majority of men that any activity should be judged otherwise than by comparing it with the stereotyped average of the day. This is, to be sure, only that blindness of the common mind which Socrates and Plato observed in their day, but it is now aggravated through the greater ma.s.siveness and conductivity of modern society.

These considerations will serve both to introduce and to justify my present undertaking. I a.s.sume that duty is not an arbitrary mandate which the individual must obey blindly or from motives of fear; but the conviction of moral truth, the enlightened recognition of the good.[6]

Hence I wish to demonstrate morality to an individual reflective mind, open to the facts of life and to conviction of truth. I shall expound morality out of no book but experience, "that universal and publick Ma.n.u.script, that lies {41} expans'd unto the Eyes of all." To refer morality to custom, to conscience in the sense of individual prepossession or inst.i.tutional authority, even if these be interpreted as the oracles of G.o.d, is to justify the suspicion that it is groundless and arbitrary, at best a matter of loyalty or good form. I shall present morality as a set of principles as inherent in conduct, as unmistakably valid there, as is gravitation in the heavens. I shall hope to make it appear that the saving grace of morality is directly operative in life; needing no proof from any advent.i.tious source, because it proves _itself_ under observation.

I shall address myself to an individual protagonist whom I shall designate in the second person; and whom I shall suppose to exhibit that yielding reluctance which is the mark of a mind that for very love of truth will not too readily a.s.sent.

As I am to prove morality to you, I accept the burden of proof; but you are not on that account totally without responsibility in the matter.

As you must not stop your ears, or close your bodily eyes, so you must not shut the eye of the mind, or harden your heart. Were you to adopt such an att.i.tude I should be compelled to set argument aside, and resort to such practical measures as might shock or entice you into reasonableness. Or, I might abandon you as incorrigible. It is {42} clear that I can as little show reasons to a man who will not think them with me, as I can show the road to one who will not look where I point it out. A very large amount of moral exhortation consists in the attempt to overcome apathy and inattention. Such exhortation cannot in the nature of the case be logical, because the subject's logical organ is not as yet functioning. I doubt if there is any discussion of moral matters in common life in which this form of appeal is not present in a measure sufficient to obscure the merits of the question at issue. I desire for present purposes to eliminate as far as possible all conflict and prejudices, and thus to dispense with zeal and eloquence.

I shall a.s.sume, therefore, that you propose to be reasonable concerning this moral affair. By this I mean simply that you shall directly observe the facts of life, report candidly on these facts, and fully accept the implications of any judgment to which you may commit yourself. I may phrase your pledge of reasonableness thus: "Show what is right, and that it is right, and I will accept it. I mean my action to be good, and ask only to have the good demonstrated to me, that I may intelligently adopt it."

{43}

II

It is commonly believed that whereas the logic of _prudence_ is unimpeachable, there is a hiatus between this level of morality and those above. To drink one's self to death is a species of folly that the poorest intelligence can understand; but the folly in meanness, injustice, or impiety is a harder matter. Believing as I do that the folly is equally demonstrable in all of these cases, I propose not to accept your ready a.s.sent in the simpler case until its grounds have been made as clear and definite as possible. I feel convinced that prudence is not so simple a matter as appears; in fact that it involves the whole ethical dialectic.

I find you, let us say, eating an apple with evident relish; and I ask you why. If you are candid, and free from pedantry, you will doubtless reply that it is because you like to. In this particular connection I can conceive no profounder utterance. But we may obtain a phraseology that will suit our theoretical purposes more conveniently and serve better to fix the matter in our minds. Your eating of the apple is a process that tends within certain limits to continue and restore itself, to supply the actions and objects necessary to its own maintenance. I have proposed that we call such a process an _interest_. In that it is a part of that very complex physical and {44} moral thing called "you," it is _your_ interest, and it also has, of course, its special subject-matter, in this case the eating of an apple. It involves specific movements of body, and makes a specific requisition on the environment. Now, still confining ourselves strictly to this interest, we shall doubtless agree to call any phase of it in which it is fulfilled, in which its exercise is fostered and unimpeded, _good_. And we shall doubtless agree to attach the same term, although perhaps in a less direct sense, to that part of the environment which it requires, in this case the apple, and to the subsidiary actions which mediate it, such as the grasping of the apple, or the biting and mastication of it. I mean only that these modes or factors of the interest are _in some sense good_; qualifications and limitations may be adjudicated later.

In this case, which so far as I can see is the simplest possible case of the sort of value that enters into life, the value is supplied by a specific type of process which we may call an interest, and it is supplied thereby absolutely, fundamentally. It makes both this apple and your eating of it good that you should _like to eat it_. If you could explain every action as you explain this action, when it is thus isolated, there would be no moral problem.

We may now safely open the door to the objections that have been pressing for admission. {45} The first to appear is an old friend among philosophers; but one whose reputation so far exceeds its merits that it must be submitted to vigilant examination. It is objected (I am sure that you have long wanted to say this) that your repast is _good for you, good from your point of view_, but not on that account _really good_. These are the terms with which it is customary to confound any serious judgment of truth; and they acquire a peculiar force here because we seem to have invited their application. We have agreed that your action is good in that it suits your interest, and thus seem to have defined its goodness as relative to you. Now, if we are to avoid a confusion of mind that would terminate our investigation here and now, we must bring to light a latent ambiguity.

We have, it is true, discovered goodness to be a phase of a process called "interest," which is qualified further, through the use of a personal p.r.o.noun. The nature of goodness, in other words, is such as to involve certain specific _relations_, here involving a person or subject. Goodness is not peculiar in this respect; for there are very few things in this world that do not involve specific relations. This is the case, for example, with planets, levers, and brothers. There is no planet without its sun, no lever without its fulcrum, no brother who is not somebody's brother.

{46}

But the relationship in the case of goodness is supposed to be a more serious matter; sufficiently serious to discredit the meaning of goodness, or make all judgments concerning goodness merely expressions of bias. The supposition is due to the confusion of a relativity in the _subject-matter_ of the judgment, with a relativity of the judgment itself to the individual that gives utterance to it. Thus the judgment, "You like apples," deals with your interest and the objects relating to it; but the judgment itself is not therefore bia.s.sed. It is no more an expression of your opinion than it is of mine; it is a formulation of what occurs in the field of experience open to all observers. A judgment _concerning_ only you, is utterly different from a judgment _representing_ only you. The latter, if there were such a thing, would be ungrounded, and would justify the sceptic's suspicions.

The confusion is possible here simply because the subject-matter of the judgment in question is itself a judgment. It could scarcely arise in the parallel cases. The lever cannot be defined except in relation to its fulcrum. This may be loosely generalized and made to read: judgments concerning a lever are relative to a fulcrum. It might even be said that a lever is a lever only from the point of view of its own fulcrum. But the most unscrupulous quibbler would scarcely offer this as evidence against {47} the objective validity of our knowledge of levers. Your brother is necessarily related to you; but the proposition defining the relationship is not on that account relative, that is, peculiarly yours or any one else's. Fraternity is a complex involving a personal connection, but is none the less entirely objective. And precisely the same thing is true of goodness. To observe it adequately one must bring into view that complex object called an interest, which may be yours or his or mine; but it will be brought none the less into our common view, and observed as any other object may be observed. Because goodness is inherent in a process involving instincts, desires, or persons, it is not one whit less valid or objective than it would be if it involved the sun or the first law of motion.

Let us now turn to a much more fruitful objection. Suppose it be objected that your action, though good when thus artificially isolated, will in the concrete case have to be considered more broadly before any final judgment can be p.r.o.nounced on it. To this objection I fully a.s.sent. It implies that although we have fully defined a hypothetical case of goodness, we have so far simplified the conditions as to make our conclusions inadequate to moral experience. Accepting this qualification, it is now in order to complicate the situation; but retaining our a.n.a.lysis {48} of the elementary process, and employing terms in the meaning derived therefrom.

Let us suppose that the apple which you enjoy eating, is my apple, and that I delight in keeping it for my own uses. Such being the case, we fall to wrangling over it, and your appet.i.te is like to go unappeased.

I now have evidence to show you that your act of violent appropriation does not conduce to your interest. This is simply an experimental and empirical fact. I am in a position to show you that the character of your action is other than you supposed, that you were under a misapprehension as to its goodness. It leads not to the enjoyable activity which interests you, but to a series of bodily exertions and a state of unfulfilled longing in which you have no interest at all.

Indeed your action is a hinderance to your interest; in other words, is bad.

But I proceed to point out to you the further fact that, if you will buy the apple and thus conciliate me, you may get rid of my interference and proceed with your activity. Your purchase is now justified in precisely the same manner as your original seizure of the object. If you are asked why you do it, you may still reply, "Because I like apples."

Now, it would accord with the customary use of terms to call such action on your part _prudence_; and prudence is commonly regarded as a virtue {49} or moral principle. But in prudence the meaning of morality is as yet only partially realized; it is morality upon a relatively low level. Hence it is desirable to avoid reading too much into it.

On the one hand, prudence does involve the checking of one interest in consequence of the presence of another. You have noted my interest, acknowledged it as having its own claims, and made room for it.

Therein your action differs signally from your dealings with your mechanical environment. And it is this contact and adjustment of interests, this practical recognition of the fact that the success of one interest requires that other interests be respected, and dealt with in a special manner appropriate to them as interests, that marks the procedure as moral. On the other hand, while you have acknowledged my interest, you have not _adopted_ it. You have concerned yourself with my love of property only in so far as it affected your fondness for apples. In order to appeal to you I have had to appeal to this, as yet your only interest. The moral value of your action lies wholly in its conduciveness to this interest, because it is controlled wholly by it.

You are as yet only a complex acting consistently in such wise as to continue an eating of apples. This formula is entirely sufficient as a summary of your conduct, even after you have learned to respect my property. And therein lies {50} its _merely_ prudential character. In prudence thus strictly and abstractly regarded, there is no preference, no subordination of motives. Action is controlled by an exclusive and insistent desire, which limits itself only with a view to effectiveness.

III

It would appear, then, that if I am to justify those types of action which are regarded as more completely moral, _I must persuade you to adopt interests that at any given instant do not move you_. I must persuade you to forego your present inclination for the sake of another; to judge between interests, and prefer that which on grounds that you cannot reasonably deny is the more valid. In other words, I must define a logical transition from prudence to _preference_, or _moral purpose_.

Let us suppose that, in spite of your liking, apples do not "agree with" you. It is, for example, pertinent to remark that if you eat the apple to-day you cannot go to the play to-morrow. Our parley proceeds as follows:

"Just now I am eating apples. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

"But you acknowledge your fondness for the theatre."

"Yes, but that doesn't interest me now."

"Nevertheless you recognize the interest in {51} play-going as a real one, dormant to-day, temporarily eclipsed by another interest, but certain to revive to-morrow?"

"I do."

"And you admit that, apart from the chance of your death in the meantime, a chance so small as to be negligible, an interest to-morrow is as real as an interest to-day?"

"Yes."

"Now, recognizing these two interests, and keeping them firmly in view, observe the consequences of your action if you persist in eating the apple, and p.r.o.nounce judgment upon it."

"It would seem to be both good and bad; good in its conduciveness to the satisfaction of my present appet.i.te, bad in its preventing my enjoyment of the play."

In your last reply you have fairly stated the problem. You are not permitted to escape the dilemma by simply neglecting the facts, for this would be contrary to the original agreement binding you to be and remain open-minded. And you are now as concerned as I to solve the problem by defining a reorganization of the situation that would permit of an action unequivocally good, that is altogether conducive to the fulfilment of interest.

To understand what would const.i.tute a solution of this moral problem it is important to observe, {52} in the first place, that an action _wholly conducive to both interests_ would take precedence of an action which fulfilled the one but sacrificed the other. Were it possible for you to eat the apple now and go to the play to-morrow, your rational course would be to allow your present impulse free play. You would thus be alive to the total situation; your action would in reality be regulated by both interests, or rather by a larger interest embracing and providing for both. An action thus controlled would have a more adequate justification than an action conceived with reference to the one interest exclusively, and merely happening to be favorable to the other interest also. Or suppose that, by subst.i.tuting a different species of apple for the one first selected, you could avoid disagreeable consequences, and without loss of immediate gratification.

In this case you would have corrected your original action and adopted a course that proved itself better, because conducive to the fulfilment of to-morrow's interest as well as to-day's.