A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution

by Cora May Williams

In any discussion of the will, we are met at the outset by the difficulties of definition, on which whole chapters might be, and have been, written. But one great difficulty has already been considered in the discussions of the previous chapter, in the questions as to the existence of consciousness in inorganic nature, in organisms which differ from our own in not possessing a centralized nervous system, and in connection with actions of our own body known to our centralized consciousness only as results. Leaving these questions open, as we have found it necessary to do, and confining ourselves, in speaking of consciousness, to consciousness as we immediately know it, or as we may, with some degree of probability, infer it in animals constituted similarly to ourselves, we find one obstacle to our definition removed. For by will is generally meant a psychical faculty; and to speak of "unconscious will" is either a self-contradiction or a mere figure of speech.

We shall also find, I think, that the most essential characteristic of the will as a psychical faculty is that it is connected with action which has in view some end consciously sought; action to which there corresponds no conscious end, whether a long premeditated end or an end instantaneously comprehended and assumed in the moment of need, we term reflex. The question may arise as to whether there are not acts which we name merely "involuntary," which must be classified, from a pyschological standpoint, as midway between the voluntary and the reflex. But it may be answered that here, as everywhere in connection with the organic, there is difficulty in drawing distinct lines; there are psychical conditions in which some strong emotion, for instance, terror, so takes possession of the mind as almost to exclude plan of action, and the individual appears to act, as we say, "unconsciously"; but I think this very adverb solves, for us, to all practical purposes, the question we have put. When we analyze such psychical conditions, we often find that, besides emotion, there was some degree of preconception of action, though the emotion so absorbed our attention at the time that the other appeared subordinate and was easily forgotten; but the fact that we term action of this sort, where we fail to discover preconception, "unconsciously" performed, would go to confirm the definition with which we began, though we may have difficulty in deciding whether or not a particular action comes under the head of willed action, that is, action to a preconceived end.

Another question which has been frequently asked, in analyses of the will, is whether mere abstinence from action, the negation of action, can be classed as an instance of willing, willing being, by definition, an active, not a passive state. It may be answered that, from the physiological point of view, a point of view not to be wholly disregarded even by the conservative psychologist, the arresting action of the will as the control of lower by higher centres, is its most important function. And to this physiological fact corresponds the psychological fact that no stronger exertion of will-power is known to us than that sometimes necessary to the attainment of mere passivity. A definition that would exclude such passive states from the province of the will must exclude, on the same principle, all other willing not issuing in muscular action, and so all voluntary control of thought. The choice between activity and passivity may be as real and as difficult as between two different forms of activity.

We have here introduced the concept of choice, and it may be well to define this, and its significance in our definition of will, more exactly. Voluntary action is, we say, often preceded by long deliberation and severe struggle, ending finally in the choice of one of the many modes of action deliberated. We can conceive of this struggle as not so long, as shorter and shorter, until it occupies so little time and attention as to be scarcely perceptible. But we can conceive, also, of a premeditation which includes no struggle, in which one motive appears so strong as to exclude consideration of any but the one end, and the deliberation has reference only to the best means of attaining that end. The murderer, inspired by a desire for revenge, may seek his end with the same directness, if not the same instantaneousness, or with the same directness and instantaneousness, as the dog who snaps at a piece of meat; yet we call his action voluntary, whatever we may think of the dog's action, our conception of which may be rendered indistinct by our uncertainty as to the nature of instinct and the part it plays in the action of other species. We call the action of the murderer voluntary because we conceive that he consciously sought the end involved. We are even inclined to call it voluntary in cases where the criminal is moved by momentary passion, since we conceive that he might have exerted self-control.

Our conception of will is, therefore, closely bound up with the conception of conscious end, distant or near. Our association of choice with the act is not always exact; we may conceive of the choice as actually taking place between one of several ends deliberated upon, or as involved in the conscious determination of any end, even though no other was deliberated upon, even though all others were excluded from consciousness by passion; since we conceive that as all definition is, in fact, exclusion, so the determination of one end is in effect the negation of others that might have been sought, if only in the form of the contrary of action, inaction.

We are thus brought, first of all, to a consideration of the meaning of the term "end." As we have seen in the last chapter, an end is that part of the results of an action which consciousness especially holds in view in the performance of an act. The end in view has sometimes been called the cause of the act, but it is evident, as both Gizycki and Stephen have shown, that a future state, that is, something which at the time of willing does not exist, cannot move the will; though the representation of a hoped-for end is concerned in action,—in just what capacity we have yet to determine. It has also been urged that nothing external can act upon the will, but only internal states of consciousness. All depends, here, upon the definition of external and internal. The distinction between the two is a legitimate one where it calls attention to the difference between that which is at present perceived and that which is only remembered, or imagined from the elements given by memory. But what is an object, as present to me, beyond what it is to my consciousness? My knowledge of a thing is made up of various elements contributed through the different senses; and this assertion is exactly the same as the statement that a thing is the sum of its qualities. My idea of the fire, the lamp, or any other object as external, arises from the fact that it appeals to more of my senses than one, that, if withdrawn from one or from all but one, it may still be perceived by the other or others, or that, if withdrawn from all of them for a time by some obstacle, it may be perceived again when this obstacle is removed; but beyond perception or memory of perception, in any case, I have no consciousness of the object. The perception is not, however, something distinct from consciousness, but is consciousness. The error above noticed arises from the conception of consciousness as a sort of place, another space into which we cannot get objects from external space; the conception is a crude one, yet it often enters into psychological speculation. The perceived, that is the external, does, as a matter of fact, affect our will.

There may thus be two definitions of the term "internal" and two of "external," as the words are generally used. Internal may mean either within the body or within consciousness, external may mean external to the body or external to consciousness. The two meanings are, in both cases, commonly confused,—that is, consciousness is looked upon, as has been said, as a sort of internal space within the body to which external things cannot get admission. "External to consciousness" should refer simply to that which the individual or individuals considered do not perceive, of which they are unconscious. That of which we are conscious is in consciousness. But all manner of ingenious jugglery is played with the help of the metaphysical dualism implied in the other definition of the terms. The objection of a possibility of this duality of meaning applies to Barratt's use of the term "external" at the opening of his book on Ethics, and the objection of a possibility of a similar duality applies to many other expressions in the propositions and definitions with which he begins,—to such expressions, for instance, as "relative to our faculties," "state of consciousness," etc.[131] Objection may also be taken to such quantification of the predicate as is found in Cor. 1 of Prop. I.

To return to the question of the will. The thought-image, memory or perception, with its associations, has been termed the excitation or the motive and said to move or determine the will to some end. Thus the perception of the burning house is said to be that which leads me to give an alarm, or the perception of the smoking lamp that which moves me to turn it down. To this form of statement is often objected that mere thought or perception can never move the will, but that feeling is required to do this. A further discussion may arise as to whether it is feeling in the form of pleasure or of pain which moves the will. Many authors regard anticipated pleasure as a constant motive; Rolph, on the contrary, as we have seen, inclines to the view that it is always some present pain by which we are moved to action. And it is argued that, since the direction of the will is determined by pleasure or by pain, that is by motives, the will is not free.

Again, the physiologist calls attention to the fact that the so-called free action of the will has for its basis physiological processes, all of which are in accordance with the strict uniformity of nature, all subject to law, and all, as we must believe, capable of exact prediction from the conditions which produce them, if we but comprehended these conditions. There is no gap in these processes where free will might interpose; the whole thought-process, the deliberation preceding decision, the moral struggle if there is one, the decision itself, and its realization in action, have for their foundation physiological function, which is as much determined by necessity as any of the processes in inorganic nature. The results of past experience, not of the experience of the individual only but of that of the whole species inherited as inborn tendency and capacity and modified by individual circumstances, are stored up in the organism, the point of centralization being the brain; any single excitation sets this whole complicated machinery in motion and the result is the act. The individual, not understanding this complicated process of reaction, not being able to trace the results of experience to their source, to descend the whole scale of being to the beginnings of life and note the gradual development of tendency, and seeing the inadequacy of the excitation in itself to account for the action following, attributes to this a peculiar character, regarding that which is really result as absolute beginning, independent cause.

We may consider the matter from still another point of view. We may inquire whether the freedom predicated of the human will is predicated of that alone, or of will in the whole range of animal life. And if it be predicated of the human will alone, we may ask at just what point of the evolution this is supposed to arise, whether, in the gradual development, any particular point can be found or assumed to exist, of which we can say: Here the animal ceases and man begins. Or if freedom is asserted of the whole range of animal will, not, however, of plant movement or the motions of the inorganic, we may again inquire as to the point of exact division between the animal and the plant. Evolution is, by definition, a gradual process, a growth in which there are no gaps, and of which our finest and most minute calculations by infinitesimals can give us only a faint conception. Where is there any point of such a process at which we can suppose the entrance of a totally new principle that cannot be regarded as another expression of force or merely a new form of animal function, but as directly opposed to developed function and to the force that is subject to natural law?