The ethics of Hercules

by Robert Chenault Givler

FOOTNOTES:

[11] Class A is divided into the following sub-classes:

I. Straight.

1. That which is not bent, curved, or crooked in any way; for example, a straight line.

2. That which is formed by, or with reference to, a line drawn to another line or surface by the shortest course (i. e., a perpendicular), as, for example, right line, right angle, right ascension, etc.

3. Used to describe solid figures having the ends or base at an angle of 90 degrees with the axis, e. g., right solid, right sphere, right cone, right helicoid, etc.

4. Right circle; in the stereographic projection, a circle represented by a straight line.

5. Right line pen; one that is adapted especially for ruling lines.

II. Direct.

6. The shortest course; that which keeps one and the same direction throughout.

7. That which goes straight to its destination. Compare: “Right across the track.”

III. Immediately. (Compare “directly.”)

8. Suddenly, at once; e. g., “He went right home.” “Right up the mountain.” “Let thine eyes look right on.” “He went right off.”

9. Right away, right here, right now, right down (Cf. downright). “These strata falling, the whole tract sinks down ‘to rights’ in the abyss.”

IV. Idiomatic uses derived from the foregoing.

10. In hunting, the scent or track of the game. “The dogs have got the right.”

11. “Right the helm,” that is, put it in line with the keel.

12. “Right aft,” that is, in direct line with the axis and stern of the ship.

[12]

This class includes:

22. “You say not right, old man.”

23. “A right description of our sport, my Lord.”

24. “There hath been a terrible to-do, I could not possibly learn the very right of it.”

25. “You are certainly in the right.”

26. “To put the saddle on the right horse.” (That is, to impute blame where it is deserved.)

27. “The clock that stands still points right twice in the four and twenty hours; while others may keep going continually and be continually going wrong.”

28. “A fool must now and then be right by chance.”

29. “And this wise world of ours is mainly right.”

30. “Some praise at morning what they blame at night,
But always think the last opinion right.”

Idiomatic and archaic uses, signifying true, real, actual, genuine, correct.

31. “If they be not right Granado silk.”

32. “A pound of ointment of right spikenard.”

33. “A right pipe of Trinidad.”

34. “My ryghte doghter, tresoure of myn herte.”

35. “The Poet is indeed the right Popular Philosopher, whereof Esops tales giue good proofe.”

36. “Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.”

37. Right! Right-O! Right you are! (Slang.)

[13] This class includes:

38. That side of the body which is on the east when the face is toward the north, its limbs, their clothing, etc., as, for example, right arm, cheek, leg, ear, coat-sleeve, and so on.

39. Motions in the direction implied in the preceding example: “Go to the right.” “Right about.”

40. Anything, usually one member of a pair, shaped or otherwise adapted for a right-hand position or use, e. g., gloves, shoes, etc.

41. A right-side tool. A right-hand thread on a machine screw.

42. Right camphor; “The camphor produced from the Lauraceae which gives a right polarization to light.

43. Right bower; in euchre the knave of trumps, which is the highest card next to the joker. This card has a place in our study of “right” if for no other reason than that it signifies power of achievement in that player who finds it in his hand.

44. The right hand of fellowship. This expression denotes a custom of very ancient origin, practised in treaties by the Persians and Parthians, not only as an inviolable pledge of fidelity (“In union there is strength.”), but also as a proof that no club or other weapon was concealed in the hand.

45. In the politics of continental Europe,—that party which occupies the position to the right of the president in the legislative assembly.

46. By metonomy (conditioned reflex) the conservative political party.

47. By selective association, the party or party principles which one approves.

[14] As a partial list of the significations included in this class, may be cited:

48. In the legal sense, that which justly accrues or falls to anyone, that which one may properly claim, one’s due, e. g., territory, estate, dominion.

49. Particular cases of the preceding: Right of eminent domain, Constitutional rights, Corporeal rights, Inchoate right of dower, Innominate rights, etc.

50. Idiomatic expressions: “To be in the right,” “To have the right,” “With right,” “By right or rights,” “Of right,” “To have due right,” etc.

51. Joint rights; a title or claim to something properly possessed by two or more persons.

52. A document substantiating a legally recognized claim or title.

53. Legally just or equitable treatment.

54. “Right drawn sword,” drawn in a just cause.

55. The person, party, or cause which is sustained in a controversy. (Compare Ex. 47, Class D.)

56. To do one right; to do one justice.

57. “Right money”; money paid as the condition or consideration of acquiring a “right” to the purchase of land.

58. The title or claim to the enjoyment of privileges or indemnities. (A relatively unemphatic use of the term “legal right.”)

[15] The significations included in this class are numerous and various. As follows:

59. “In conformity with the moral law; permitted by the principle which ought to regulate conduct; in accordance with truth, justice, duty, or the will of God; ethically good, equitable, just.”

60. “A poor man has no [legal] right to relief, but it is [morally] right that he should have it. A rich man has a [legal] right to destroy the harvest of his fields, but to do so would not be [morally] right.”

61. “Goodness in actions is like unto straightness; wherefore that which is done well we term right.”

62. “Cousin of Hereford, as thy cause is right, So be thy fortune in this royal fight.”

63. “He Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid What shall be right.”

64. “That which is consonant with equity, or the light of nature; that which is morally just or due.”

65. “Right conduct; a just and good act, or course of action; anything which justly may or should be done.”

66. “Wrest once the law to your authority; To do a great right, do a little wrong.”

67. “Too fond of the right to do the expedient.”

68. “With firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.”

69. The right; the cause of truth and justice.

70. That which is proper for or incumbent on one to do: one’s duty. (Obsolete.)

71. The standard of permitted and forbidden action within a certain sphere. (Obsolete.)

72. “Obedience to or harmony with the rules of morality, justice, truth, and propriety.”

73. “Acting in accordance with the highest moral standard; free from guilt or blame.”

74. “A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is his name.”

75. “I have made him just and right, Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.”

76. “Right reason: that which recommends itself to enlightened intelligence: some inward intimation for which great respect is felt and which is supposed to be common to the mass of mankind.”

77. To be in the right; “to have justice, fact, or reason upon one’s side.”

78. In prepositional phrases, with, by, of right; properly, with reason, justice, etc.

79. To have a right. To have reason or cause; hence, to come near, have a narrow escape from (sic!); e. g., “I’d a good right to be run over by the train this morning.” (Colloquial.)

80. “Divine right of kings.”

81. “Right way; the way of moral excellence or spiritual salvation.” “But you are a presbyterian...?” “I am, sir; praised be the light that shewed me the right way!”

82. Of persons and dispositions; disposed to do what is just.

83. Of belief; orthodox, true. That which ought to be accepted or followed.

84. To do justice to; to relieve from distress; to vindicate; often used reflexively.

“So just is God, to right the innocent.”

85. To do right; to act according to the “law or will of God.”

86. To feel right toward a person; to be either kind, or sympathetic, or to cooperate with him.

[16] We cite here:

87. “The first place is yours, Timothy, in right of your gray hairs.”

88. “I have a perfect right to grieve over him.”

89. “She has a right to be admired, for she is beautiful.”

90. “Not only is she a peeress, but she has fourteen thousand a year in her own right.”

91. “Put your bonnet to the right use; ’tis for the head.”

92. “Why do you twist words out of their right use?”

93. “Mr. Right” “Mrs. Right,” the destined husband or wife.

94. “That part of the quarry given to the hounds as their share or due.”

95. “A stag’s full complement of antlers, consisting of the brow, the bay, and the tray.”

96. “To do one right” to pledge one in a toast. (Compare: “faire raison à.”)

97. “The right word is always a power, and communicates its definiteness to our actions.”

[17] For example:

98. “I should have been a woman by right.”

99. “The lady has been disappointed on the right side.”

100. “If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should refuse to perform your father’s will....”

101. Idiomatic colloquial phrases expressing satisfaction or approval: as “Your conduct and dress are all right.” “He has done it all right.” “Are you ready? All right, go ahead.”

102. To set right; to adjust or correct something out of order. “Your mother’s hand shall right your mother’s wrong.”

103. In a satisfactory or proper state or order: “It’s a snug little island, a right little, tight little island.”

104. Skilfully performed, correctly done: “The sum is not right.” “The drawing is not right.” “Nothing goes right.”

105. “To rights,” properly, fittingly, as, for example, “She put the room to rights.”

106. “I put him right on the matter,” that is, corrected or directed him, or both.

107. The safe, advantageous, appropriate, or desirable side of anything, as, “A widow on the right side of thirty.”

108. Fitting, proper, appropriate, exactly according to what is required or suitable, as, “Things of the right size.”

109. The outward, front, or most finished surface of anything, as, “The right side of a piece of cloth.”

110. In good health or spirits, sound, comfortable, or sane, as:

“An old uncle of mine who isn’t exactly right.”

“He is not in his right mind; he is talking nonsense and is stark mad.”

“The heart’s aye the part aye

That makes us right or wrang.”

“‘Oh,’ said Mr. Winkle the elder, ‘I hope you are well, sir.’ ‘Right as a trivet, sir,’ replied Bob Sawyer.”

CHAPTER VI
THE MEANING OF THE WORD “WRONG”

“The human mind is capable of having very many perceptions, and the more capable, the greater the number of ways in which its body can be disposed.” Spinoza, “Ethics,” Part II, Prop. 14.

Lexicographers are wont to state that “wrong” is the opposite of “right” in all of its principle senses, but as can be seen at a glance from the appended array,[18] this statement cannot be taken to imply that any such extensive list of significations as we exhibited in our analysis of “right” can be reproduced here. Indeed, in what respect “wrong” is the antonym of “right,” or, in other words, how far this pair of terms illustrates the law of reciprocal innervation, can be seen only from a detailed comparison of the two, as follows:—

RIGHT	WRONG
Class A.
The word “right” as descriptive of certain mathematical relationships and physical functions.
Sub-class I.
“Straight,” (a word in current usage)	negated by “Crooked,” Ex. I, (obsolete).
Sub-class II.
“Direct”	No antonym
Sub-class III.
“Immediately”	No antonym
Class B.
“Right” as descriptive of the method (or object) by which the desired end can be obtained	negated by Examples 3 and 5; but only if we override the objection that “right” here usually refers to one specific method or object, while “wrong” can refer to any one of a number of unspecified things.
Class C.
“Right” as descriptive of any statement that reports the facts; of any opinion or judgment that is correct; and of any person who judges, thinks, or acts in accordance with the facts or the truth about a matter	negated by Examples 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, and 11, except for the difference just previously mentioned, and omitting examples 31-35 inclusive on p. 80.
Class D.
“Right” as the distinctive epithet of the hand which is normally the stronger	No antonym
Class E.
Legal “rights”; those claims and interests the establishment and protection of which may be secured by force and even violence	negated only with respect to some particular cases of “right” by Examples 8, 9, and 17.
Class F.
Moral “rights”	negated by Examples 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 16, and 17; but only in the same way that moral “right” is incompatible with legal “right.”
Class G.
Unspecified and unrestricted liberties and privileges	negated restrictively by the single example of No. 18.
Class H.
That which is most convenient, desirable, or favorable; conforming to one’s wish or desire; to be preferred, etc.,	negated by Examples 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, and 15.
Class I.
“Right” signifying very, in great degree	No antonym

This comparison obviously reveals no basis for the statement that “wrong” and “right” are complete antitheses to each other, at least in the fine sense that up is the opposite of down, in of out, or east of west. So that, if we accept the word “right” as descriptive of a behavior situation in which the dominant feature is the controlling and directing of human energies, the employment of technique to further man’s purposes, or the attainment of any “good” whatsoever, the word “wrong” cannot,—either according to the detailed list of its uses just presented, or according to the above scheme of its logical relationship to “right,”—be said to be the true antonym of that word. The law of reciprocal innervation does not, in its integrity, apply here.

How then shall we explain the fact that people so habitually say and feel that “wrong” is the opposite of “right,” if it cannot be admitted that antagonistic muscles are always employed in the thoughts and the acts to which these two words refer? Perhaps the following interpretation will answer. Logicians are accustomed to say that any universal proposition, any sweeping statement, such as, “Every swan is white,” or “No aliens need apply,” is contradicted by the admission that one single exception is to be allowed. But obviously, such logical contradiction, such admission of a lone but effective exception, is not equivalent to granting that “No swans are white,” or that “Every alien is requested to apply.” Nevertheless, the tradition among logicians is that with the granting of one such exception, the sweeping statement originally made is held to be untrue, and hence, false. In physiological terms (than which there are none more fundamental), contradiction is for the logician equivalent to a partial but effective inhibition of any fully developed action-tendency. When Plato would say, “You may all now come in to dinner,” but is deterred by seeing Diogenes muddying his feet in order to tread the more scornfully on the clean banquet floor, Plato’s action-pattern of wholesale, cordial invitation is suddenly interrupted. And, so far as Plato’s emotions are concerned, the need to make one important exception in his invitation, is very much like having to turn the whole company out of doors. This tendency for an emotional repugnance to blot out all sense of proportion is clearly illustrated in certain oft-repeated fables. The story of the involuntary guest who had not on a wedding garment, of the ninety and nine sheep, and of the rich young man are cases in point. Similar examples may be found in the behavior of any household. The vexed hostess is heard complaining that one little faux pas on the part of her serving-girl “completely spoiled the whole evening.” The sweet young thing whose lover arrives a quarter of an hour later than his appointment accuses him of being elsewhere enamoured to stay. The wife whose husband forgets only one of her twenty birthdays since their marriage often finds it impossible to overlook the single, unhabitual fault. It is not that such people crave or dote on perfection; they do nothing of the sort: it is only that their behavior mechanisms are unable to readjust quickly to another stimulus than the one which they have expected, and this failure to readjust releases energies by way of the viscera instead of along other and more pacific pathways.

All this has an important bearing on the meaning of the word “wrong.” We saw that this word has only 18 significations, as compared with the 114 significations of “right.” We also saw that it is only partially antagonistic to the concept to which it is commonly opposed. And it has further been revealed that our customary logic makes a single exception the grounds for an assumption of contradiction. On the basis of these observations, then, we may declare that “wrong” refers to some very special behavior situations where human energies cannot be controlled and directed as desired, where the employment of technique to further man’s purposes has been hindered, and where “good” cannot be obtained. This, however, is not equivalent to saying that “wrong” is the antonym, the unqualified contradictory, of “right,” any more than red is the opposite of blue, or coffee the opposite of tea.

A Physiological Warrant for Ethical Optimism

A question of considerable importance both in physiology and in ethics arises when we ask why the concepts “right” and “good” have so many more significations than do “wrong,” “evil,” and “bad.” We have already emphasized the relation between speech and conduct sufficiently to indicate that upon the answer to such a question something essential for a technique in ethics depends. A word can have a great number of significations only by its being employed in a great variety of situations, and this means that very many different specific responses are implicit in the use of our most comprehensive concepts. Contrariwise, with a word of fewer significations, fewer such responses are implied. Now we have already cited the fact that “good” and “right” refer primarily to outgoing (extensor) reactions, and that “wrong,” “evil,” and “bad” signify withdrawing (flexor) reactions. Are we, then, summarily to conclude, without any further knowledge of the body’s mechanisms, that since we seem to use our extensor system in a more diversified manner than our flexor system, the muscular equipment of the former is superior to that of the latter?

If we do so conclude, we shall be in error. It is the opposite that is nearer the truth. Both larger and stronger, and, on the whole, more easily educated muscles exist in the flexor than in the extensor system. The innumerable capacities of the half-closed hand are representative of this superiority. Still more important, however, is the fact that the flexor system is practically the dominant system in the human body. The hinges of the knee, hip, shoulder, elbow, wrist, and jaw are more often, more strongly, and more readily closed maximally than they are expanded to the full. Besides, occupational postures are almost universally crystallized withdrawing responses. Where, then, shall we look for the answer to our question?

We shall look directly at the behavior of the organism as a whole. While it is admitted that flexor actions are stronger, more numerous, and more universal than are extensor reactions, yet when we consider how the flexor reactions dispose the body toward its environment, we shall at once have light on this curious problem. For the effect of such reactions is to cut off the body from a large part of the environment, and consequently to reduce the possibility of effective contact with it. Stooping, crouching, bowing the head, and lowering the eye are significant examples of flexor responses which reduce the span of perception, while every man knows that activities of the opposite character allow a greater number of stimuli to come in contact with his eyes and his ears. Consequently, even though flexor actions will always be in the majority, extensor actions have the advantage of providing the conditions under which a greater variety of stimuli can be presented to the organism. This is the same as saying that the open-minded person necessarily becomes discriminative and exploratory, while the opposite type is left to stew in his own juice. The flexor type of man is, indeed, in the end reduced to contacts with his own body, while to the extensor type of man his body is only one of the many sources of motivation, the rest being in the external environment. It seems thus to be primarily due to the very mechanics of the organism that the words “right” and “good” have a greater variety of significations than have the words “bad,” “evil,” and “wrong.”

One additional word, however, can still be said. As we have already indicated, these three so-called negative ethical concepts are all descriptive of behavior situations in which thwarting and inhibition are dominant symptoms. Henceforth, however, thwarting and inhibition will be understood as temporary interruptions of an outgoing reaction which would have eventuated had the environment contained the stimulus to which the organism was attuned to respond. As we say in common speech, a desire is not satisfied by being denied, and from our every-day experience we know that great aggravations produce as much scheming as do our easiest successes. He who casts his eye over the numerous significations of our two positive ethical concepts will now realize where much of the adroitness and sagacity which characterizes them originates.

In these two simple facts, namely, that extensor actions bring more of the world of action within our range, and that even the thwarted man imaginatively explores the environment to find substitute stimuli to release his energy upon, we find the reason why man has more uses for the words “right” and “good” than he has for the words “bad,” “evil,” and “wrong.” And with this we achieve by a purely empirical and anti-supernaturalistic method a physiological warrant for ethical optimism. If anyone is looking for a “higher” truth, let him ponder this one.