The Moral Economy

by Ralph Barton Perry

CHAPTER III

THE ORDER OF VIRTUE

I

We have thus far dealt with the general content of morality, and with its logical grounds. Morality is only life where life is organized and confident, the struggle for mere existence being replaced with the prospect of a progressive and limitless attainment. The good is fulfilled desire; the moral good the fulfilment of a universal economy, embracing all desires, actual and possible, and providing for them as liberally as their mutual relations permit. The moral good is simply the greatest possible good, where good in the broad generic sense means any object of interest whatsoever, anything proved worth the seeking from the fact that some unit of life actually seeks it. Whatever is prized is on that account precious.

The logic of morality rests on this objective relation between interest and value. The maximum good has the greatest weight, its claims are entitled to priority, because it surpasses any limited good in incentive and promise of fulfilment. Duty in this logical sense is simply to {73} control of particular actions by a full recognition of their consequences.

In the present chapter the attention is shifted from the whole to the parts of morality. I am not one of those who stake much on the casuistical application of ethical principles. Every particular action virtually involves considerations of enormous complexity; and the individual must be mainly guided by general rules of conduct or virtues, which are proved by the cumulative experience of the race. Life itself is the only adequate experiment in living. Virtues are properly verified only in the history of society, in the development of institutions, and in the evidences of progress in civilization at large. I shall confine myself, then, to such verified virtues, and seek to show their relation to morality as a whole.[1]

Virtues vary in generality according to the degree to which they refer to special circumstance; and, since there is no limit to the variety of circumstance, there is, strictly speaking, no final and comprehensive order of virtues. The term may be applied with equal propriety to types of action as universal as justice and as particular as conjugal fidelity. We shall find it necessary to confine ourselves to the more general and fundamental virtues.

I have adopted a method of classification to which I attach no absolute importance, but which {74} will, I trust, serve to amplify and illuminate the fundamental conceptions which I have already formulated. I shall aim, in the first place, to make explicit a distinction which has hitherto been obscured. I refer to the difference between the material and the formal aspects of morality. On the one hand, action is always engaged in the fulfilment of an immediate interest; this constitutes its material goodness. On the other hand, every moral action is limited or regulated by the provision which it makes for ulterior interests; this constitutes its formal goodness. Let me make this difference more clear.

A particular action is invariably connected with a particular interest; and in so far as it is successful it will thus be directly fruitful of fulfilment. And it matters not how broad a purpose constitutes its ultimate motive; for purposes can be served only through a variety of activities, each of which will have its proximate interest and its own continuous yield of satisfaction. Life pays as it goes, even though it goes to the length of serving humanity at large, and the larger enterprises owe their very justification to this additive and cumulative principle.

But if action is to be moral it must always look beyond the present satisfaction. It must submit to such checks as are necessary for the realization of a greater good. Indeed, action is not wholly {75} good until it is controlled with reference to the fulfilment of the totality of interests.

It follows, then, that every action may be judged in two respects: first, in respect of its immediate return of fulfilment; second, in respect of its bearing on all residual interests. Every good action will be both profitable and safe; both self-sustaining and also serviceable to the whole.

The necessity of determining the relative weight which is to be given to these two considerations accounts for the peculiar delicacy of the art of life, since it makes almost inevitable either the one or the other of two opposite errors of exaggeration. The undue assertion of the present-interest constitutes materialism, in the moral sense. Materialism is a forfeiture of greater good through preoccupation with nearer good. It appears in an individual's neglect of his fellow's interest, in his too easy satisfaction with good already attained, in short-sighted policy on any scale. Formalism, on the other hand, signifies the improvident exaggeration of ulterior motives. It is due to a misapprehension concerning the relation between higher and lower interests. I have sought to make it clear that higher interests owe their eminence, not to any intrinsic quality of their own, but to the fact that they save and promote lower interests. Formalism is the {76} rejection of lower interests in the name of some good that without these interests is nothing.

The conflict between the material and formal motives in life is present in every moral crisis, and qualifies the meaning of every moral idea. It may even provoke a social revolution, as in the case of the Puritan revolution in England. The Puritan is still the symbol of moral rigor and sobriety, as the Cavalier is the symbol of the love of life. The full meaning of morality tends constantly to be confused through identifying it exclusively with the one or the other of these motives. Thus morality has come, on the whole, to be associated with constraint and discipline, in both a favorable and a disparaging sense. This has led to its being rejected as a falsification of life by those who insist that every good thing is free and fair and pleasant. And, even among those who recognize the vital necessity of discipline, morality is so narrowed to that component, that it commonly suggests only those scruples and inhibitions which destroy the spontaneity and whole-heartedness of every activity.

That morality should tend to be identified with its formal rather than its material aspect is not strange; for it is the formal motive which is critical and corrective, substituting a conscious reconstruction of interests for their initial movement. It is this fact which gives to duty that {77} sense of compulsion which is so invariably associated with it. Duty is opposed to the line of least resistance, whenever life is dominated by any motive short of the absolute good-will. Thus among the Greeks, dikê is opposed to bia.[2] This means simply that because the principles of social organization are not as yet thoroughly assimilated, their adoption requires attention and effort. And a similar opposition may appear at either a higher or lower level, between the momentary impulse and the law of prudence, or between the habit of worldliness and the law of piety.

In connection with this broad difference between the material and formal aspects of life, it is interesting to observe a certain difference of leniency in the popular judgment. Materialism is more heartily condemned, because he who is guilty of it is not alive to the general good. He is morally unregenerate. Formalism, on the other hand, is good-hearted or well-intentioned. He who is guilty of it may be ridiculed as unpractical, or pitied for his misguided zeal; but society rarely offers to chastise him. For he has submitted to discipline, and if he is not the friend of man, it is not because of any profit that he has reserved for himself.

In the arrangement which follows I shall use this difference between the material and formal {78} aspects of morality to supplement the main principle of classification, which is that difference of level or range, of which I have already made some use in the previous chapter, and which I shall now define more precisely. In morality life is so organized as to provide for interests as liberally and comprehensively as possible. But the principles through which such organization is effected will differ in the degree to which they accomplish that end. Hence it is possible to define several economies or stages of organization which are successively more complete. The simple interest, first, is the isolated interest, pursued regardlessly of other interests; in other words, not as yet brought under the form of morality. The reciprocity of interests, represents that rudimentary form of morality in which interests enter only into an external relation, through which they secure an exchange of benefits without abandoning their independence. In the incorporation of interests, elementary interests are unified through a purpose which subordinates and regulates them. The fraternity of interests, is that organization in which the rational or personal unit of interest is recognized as final, and respected wherever it is met. But there must also be some last economy, in which provision is formally made for any interest whatsoever that may assert itself. This is the realm of {79} good-will, or, as I shall call it for the sake of symmetry, the universal system of interests. I shall so construe these economies as to make the broader or more inclusive comprehend the narrower.

Now each of these economies possesses its characteristic principle of organization, or typical mode of action; and this enables us to define five prime virtues: intelligence, prudence, purpose, justice, and good-will. From each of these virtues there accrues to life a characteristic benefit: from intelligence, satisfaction; from prudence, health; from purpose, achievement; from justice, rational intercourse; and from good-will, religion. The absence of these virtues defines a group of negative vices: incapacity, imprudence, aimlessness, injustice, and irreverence. Finally, applying the distinction between formalism and materialism, we obtain two further series of vices; for, with two exceptions, it is possible in each economy either to exaggerate the principle of organization, and thus neglect the constituent interests which it is intended to organize; or to exaggerate the good attained, and thus neglect the wider spheres beyond. There will thus be a formalistic series of errors: asceticism, sentimentalism, anarchism, mysticism; and a materialistic series: overindulgence, sordidness, bigotry or egoism, worldliness. Since materialism is in each case due to the lack of the next higher {80} principle of organization, there is no real difference between the materialism of one economy and the negative vice of the next. But I have thought it worth while to retain both series, because they represent a difference of emphasis which it is customary to make. Thus there is no real difference between overindulgence and imprudence; but one refers to the excess, and the other to the deficiency, in an activity which is excessive in its fulfilment of a present interest, and deficient in its regard for ulterior interests.

I have thought it best for the purpose of clear presentation to tabulate these virtues and vices; and it proves convenient, also, to adopt a fixed nomenclature. It is unfortunate that the terms must be drawn from common speech; for it is impossible that the meaning assigned to them in the course of a methodical analysis like the present, should exactly coincide with that which they have acquired in their looser application to daily life. But I shall endeavor always to make plain the sense in which I use them; and, thus guarded, they will serve to mark out a series of special topics which it is important briefly to review.

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ECONOMY VIRTUE VALUE NEGATIVE FORMALISM MATERIALISM VICE

Simple Intelli- Satis- Incapacity ——— Over-
Interest gence faction indulgence

Recipro- Prudence Health Imprudence Ascet- Sordidness
city of icism
Interests

Incorpor- Purpose Achieve- Aimless- Sentiment- Bigotry
ation of ment ness alism Egoism
Interests

Fraternity Justice Rational Injustice Anarchism Worldliness
of Inter-
Interests course

Universal Good-Will Religion Irreverence Mysticism ———
System of
Interests

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