A Handbook of Ethical Theory

Produced by Scott Pfenninger, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
We are all amply provided, with moral maxims, which we hold with more or less confidence, but an insight into their significance is not attained without reflection and some serious effort. Yet, surely, in a field in which there are so many differences of opinion, clearness of insight and breadth of view are eminently desirable.
It is with a view to helping students of ethics in our universities and outside of them to a clearer comprehension of the significance of morals and the end of ethical endeavor, that this book has been written.
I have, in the Notes appended to it, taken the liberty of making a few suggestions to teachers, some of whom have fewer years of teaching behind them than I have. I make no apology for writing in a clear and untechnical style, nor for reducing to a minimum references to literatures in other tongues than our own. These things are in accord with the aim of the volume.
I take this opportunity of thanking Professor Margaret F. Washburn, of Vassar College, and Professor F. J. E. Woodbridge, of Columbia University, for kind assistance, which I have found helpful.
G. S. F. New York, 1921.
II. Perfection 119. Perfection and Type. 120. More and Less Perfect Types. 121. Perfectionism and Intuitionism.
III. Self-realization 122. The Self-realization Doctrine. 123. The Doctrine Akin to that of Following Nature. 124. Is the Doctrine More Egoistic? 125. Why Aim to Realize Capacities? 126. The Problem of Self-sacrifice. 127. Self-satisfaction and Self-sacrifice. 128. Can Moral Self-sacrifice be a Duty? 129. Self-sacrifice and the Identity of Selves. 130. Questions which Seem to be Left Open.
1. THE POINT IN DISPUTE.—Is there an accepted content of morals? Can we use the expression without going on to ask: Accepted where, when, and by whom?
2. WHAT CONSTITUTES SUBSTANTIAL AGREEMENT?—To be sure, we may be very generous in our interpretation of what constitutes substantial agreement; we may deny significance to all sorts of discrepancies by relegating them to the unimpressive class of disputes about particulars. Such an impressionistic indifference to detail may leave us with something on our hands as little serviceable as a composite photograph made from individual objects which have little in common, a blur lacking all definite outline and not recognizable as any object at all. No man can guide his conduct by the common core of many or of all moral codes. Taken in its bald abstraction, it is not a code or anything like a code. Who can walk, without walking in some particular way, in some direction, at some time? Who can mind his manners without being mannerly in accordance with the usages of some race or people?