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

by Cora May Williams

Conduct is determined by feeling; we fly from pain, we seek pleasure; life is a continuous struggle to minimize suffering and lay a firm grasp upon happiness. "Good" means everything that favors happiness, and "bad" everything that is conducive to misery; nor can any other intelligible meaning be assigned to the words. The difficulty of proving these propositions lies in the fact that they are primary doctrines, for proof of which we must appeal to the direct testimony of consciousness. But critics oppose, not so much the propositions themselves, as certain supposed implications. By pain and pleasure is here meant every conceivable form of agreeable or disagreeable feeling. The assertion that conduct is determined by pain and pleasure is not meant as a denial that it is also, in some sense, determined by the reason; but a state of consciousness which is neither painful or pleasurable cannot be an object of desire or aversion. The reason is often contrasted with the feelings in its determination of conduct, the reasonable man being defined as one who, instead of being the slave of immediate impulse, is capable of adapting means to ends and following, thus, courses of conduct not in themselves agreeable but promising a greater total of happiness. The fact is, however, that all happiness that determines the will is future; conduct is determined, in every case, not by a future feeling of pleasure, which, as future, does not yet exist, but by present feeling. It is therefore more accurate to say that conduct is determined by the pleasantest judgment than to say that it is determined by the judgment of what is pleasantest. The intention of the agent is defined by the foreseen consequences of his conduct; his end is defined by that part of the foreseen consequences which he actually desires; and the end defines the motive, that is, the feeling, which actually determines conduct. The pleasantest end is adopted because the foretaste of the pleasure is itself pleasurable. The intellect and the emotions are in reality related as form and substance, and cannot be divided.

In the action of pain and pleasure, it seems to be an obvious fact that pain, as pain, represents tension, that is, a state of feeling from which there is a tendency to change; pleasure represents equilibrium, or a state in which there is a tendency to persist. The worm writhes on the hook, and the mind may be said to writhe under a painful emotion in the effort to writhe into some more tolerable position. In the act of choice, each mode of action is tried ideally, and the individual settles into that which is, on the whole, the easiest. The analogy which naturally offers itself and seems to give the best account of the facts is the mechanical principle of least resistance. It is not, perhaps, superfluous to remark that the volition may exercise a very small influence, even when the limiting conditions are in a great part ideal. The more painful is not necessarily the less permanent condition. It is one in which there is an additional chance against permanence. Terror sets up so disturbed a condition that the mind cannot settle into any definite course. We can no more alter arbitrarily the circumstances of our microcosm than those of the external world. It is as difficult to avoid brooding in vain regret as to evade a physical constraint.

Reason and feeling are bound together in inseparable unity. But reason, whatever its nature, is the faculty which enables us to act with a view to the distant and the future. A great part of conduct is automatic; it is either not determined by conscious motives, or it is determined by motives which, though they rise for a moment to the surface of consciousness, are forgotten as soon as felt. Of our conscious conduct, again, part may be called instinctive and part reasonable. These modes of action pass into each other by imperceptible degrees. The instinctive may be converted into reasoned as the consequences become manifest, and the reasoned become instinctive as the consequences are left out of account. So, again, the instinctive action becomes automatic when it is performed without leaving any trace upon consciousness. It may still be voluntary in the sense that the agent may be able to refrain from it if his attention happens to be aroused. Habitual actions pass through all these gradations. When the reason is called into action, it is not in virtue of a purely logical operation that it conquers if it does so; it is in virtue of the fact that it reveals a new set of forces ready to spring into action to the necessary degree.

We may be said to feel by signs as well as to reason by signs. The sight of a red flag may deter us from crossing a rifle range without calling up to our imagination all the effects of a bullet traversing the body. If the motive which prompts us to run the risk be strong, it may be necessary to convert a greater volume of latent, into active emotion; and as we frequently fail to do this, we often run risks which we should avoid were the consequences distinctly contemplated.

The development of the whole nature implies a development of both the emotional and the intellectual nature; new sensibilities imply new sentiments; and increased range of thought is associated with an equal growth in complexity and variety of emotion. The more reasonable being acts with emotion, but his emotions have more complex and refined methods. The reasonable man is a better mirror of the world without him, his conduct shows a better adaptation to ends and a greater logical consistency in its parts; more harmony of action between the different instincts. The important question is not solved by these facts. We may still ask: How is the relation between the different instincts, the influence exerted by each member of the federation, determined?

We start with certain fixed relations between our various instincts; and however these may change afterwards, our character is so far determined from the start. Again, it is plain that this inherited balance varies greatly with different peoples and gives rise to different types. In one man the sensual passions have a greater relative importance than in his neighbor, and so forth. And the question arises, whether we can determine which of these types is most reasonable.

In the construction of the bow, we may suppose that, from rude beginnings, through discovery of better and better forms as adapted to ends in view in its construction, a form of bow would finally be reached which would represent the maximum of efficiency. This bow may be called the typical bow. As exquisitely adapted to its purpose, it arouses in us æsthetic satisfaction. Like the bow, every organism represents the solution of a problem, as well as a set of data for a new problem. As the bow is felt out, so the animal is always feeling itself out. The problem which it solves is how to hold its own against the surrounding pressure and the active competition of innumerable rivals. Though we cannot apply an a priori method, cannot define the materials of which men are made or the end which they have to fulfil, we can determine to some extent their typical excellence. Recognizing the general nature of the great problem which is being worked out, we can discover what is implied in some of the results. The process of evolution must be, at every moment, a process of discovering a maximum of efficiency; though the conditions are always varying slowly, and an absolute maximum is inconceivable. At every point of the process, there is a certain determinate direction along which development must take place. The form which represents this direction is the typical form, any deviation from which is a defect. It is conceivable that the highest efficiency in different departments of conduct may imply consistent conditions. The greatest philosopher may also be the greatest athlete and the greatest poet. It is equally clear that there is no necessary connection. What, then, is the relative value of different kinds of efficiency? A complete answer to the question might bring out the fact, which seems on other grounds probable, that it is an advantage to a race to include a great variety of different types. It is enough, however, to say that, in speaking of a type, the assertion is not intended, that there is one special type conformity to which is a condition of efficiency, but that evolution is always the working out of a problem, the solution of which implies the attainment of certain general qualities.

We have changed our point of view from the consideration of pain and pleasure to that of the conditions of existence. The fact is simply, that the constants in one problem are variables in the other. Given a certain character, the agent does what gives him pleasure. But if we ask how he comes to have that character, the only mode of answering is by referring to the conditions of existence. His character must be such as to fit him for the struggle for existence. There must therefore be a correlation between painful and pernicious actions on the one hand, and pleasurable and temporal on the other. The useful in the sense of the pleasure-giving must approximately coincide with the useful in the sense of the life-preserving. All conduct may be considered as a set of habits, to each of which there is a corresponding instinct—the word habit being used to designate any mode of conduct, automatic or voluntary, which may be brought under a general rule, instinct denoting all conscious impulses to action, whether including more or less reasoned choice, and whether innate or acquired. Habits graduate from the essential processes which constitute life rather than maintain it, and which are, for the most part, automatic, to the most superficial and transitory. In order that the proposition "This habit is a bad one" may have any real meaning, we must assume that the organism can exist without it. A habit cannot be removed as one takes off a coat, as has been too often assumed; the whole character of the man is affected by its removal.

A capacity is essential if it is essential under normal conditions of environment. The quality which makes a race survive may not always be a source of advantage to every individual, or even to the average individual. Since the animal which is better adapted for continuing its species will have an advantage in the struggle, even though it may not be so well adapted for pursuing its own happiness, an instinct grows and decays not on account of its effects on the individual, but on account of its effects upon the race. The qualities of the individual and those of the race mutually imply each other, since the individual can no more be considered apart from society than the apple can be considered apart from the tree on which it grows. It remains true, however, that certain qualities of the apple may vary whilst the relation to the tree remains approximately the same, as also that the individual may vary in his qualities to some extent, his relation to society remaining approximately constant; and qualities thus variable may be regarded as, in so far, independent of society.

Social development takes place without corresponding change of individual organization. We cannot interpret the changes from savage life arrived at in present civilization, as representing an essential, great, or corresponding difference in the innate faculties of the civilized man from those of the savage, but must regard them rather as representing the accumulation of mental and material wealth. The child, learning, with the words of his language, their implicit meanings, has his feelings modified by them, is thus a philosopher and metaphysician in the cradle by the associations given him, and is educated from infancy by the necessity of conforming his activities to those of the surrounding mass. All organization implies uniformities of conduct, and therefore continuous discipline. Society is an organism in this sense, not in any mystical sense. It is not an organism with a single centre of consciousness.