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

by Cora May Williams

But the sense of the word "freedom" with which the strife between Determinism and Indeterminism has to do is that in accordance with which a free will is not subject to the law of Causality, is not, like other phenomena, a link in the chain of causes, but is, on the contrary, a cause, without being an effect. To be free in will is, according to this definition, to will without cause,—independent of all that has gone before.

Indeterminism destroys the bond between the individual and his kind, between the individual and the rest of existence. Indeterminism is hence unable to regard existence as a totality. Every deeper philosophical or religious conception becomes, thus, impossible; the only religious conception consistent with Indeterminism is Polytheism, since every being that can form the absolute beginning of a chain of causes is a little god, an absolute being. This fact is to be noted, for the reason that Determinism is sometimes designated as a godless doctrine.

The assertion that the will is without cause, and the assertion that we ourselves are the cause of our willing, are two different assertions. The last finds a cause in our nature. Thoughts and feelings, tendencies, instincts, and impulses arise in us, and in these the origin of the acts of the will is to be sought.

If the will, or a part of it, is not subject to the law of Causality, it stands in relation to the whole personality as something isolated and accidental. The Indeterminist who asserts that Determinism makes man a mere machine, himself makes of him something much meaner, something incoherent and accidental. Ethical judgment is based upon the assumption that my action is mine; it is, therefore, clear and certain only when motives and the decision they cause are known. The less my actions can be understood by knowledge of my character, the more easily I may be regarded as irresponsible. Although law regards, by its nature, action and not motive, yet even the judge must gain an insight into the motives, the outer and inner relations from which the deed originated, both in order to determine the degree of punishment necessary, and in order even to be fully persuaded that the action really took place.

Many recent Indeterminists designate the freedom of the will as exceedingly small. They thus extend the dissolution of the unity of existence and of the unity of personality to the act of willing itself. Moreover, if responsibility depends upon freedom, it is impossible to see how reward and punishment are to be justified upon this standpoint; since the individual can say with reason that he is not guilty with respect to the whole, but only with respect to a very small part of his act.

The words Responsibility, Guilt, Accountability, are taken, like so many other ethical expressions, from Jurisprudence, or rather they come to us from a time when the distinction between the province of Jurisprudence and that of Ethics had not yet been recognized. That I am made accountable for my action means that I stand as the one to whom reward or punishment for the deed is meted out. For what reason the action is rewarded or punished is a question by itself.

In relation to Ethics, the feeling of guilt, of responsibility or accountability, signifies that my act is subjected to the judgment of conscience. If I find discord between my act and that which I recognize as good, remorse arises,—a feeling of inner disharmony, unworthiness, and self-contempt which may increase until it becomes the greatest psychical pain. This feeling may be defined, from a deterministic standpoint, as dissatisfaction with oneself because one has not acted otherwise, and the wish that one had done so. This wish arises in the moment of reflection, when one weighs one's act. From the present wish is not, however, to be concluded that one could just as well have acted otherwise at the moment the act took place. Such an illusion dates the experience dearly bought with mistake and remorse back to an earlier period. According to the theory of retribution, remorse must be greatest in him who has committed the greatest crime. This is not so, however; since remorse arises from a contrast between ideal and act, which contrast can take place only when the conception of the ideal is strong; the purest and best characters often have the strongest feelings of remorse.

Remorse first arises when a new attitude of mind is attained different from that which ruled at the time of the action. Time is necessary for this new feeling to replace the old, if it is to be more than a momentary passion, and during this interval the two feelings are both active in consciousness. This is the time of the birth-pains by which the new character comes into being. The significance of remorse lies in the fact that it urges forward, that it gives birth to impulse and endeavor after a higher plane. Only because remorse is a motive, is it of ethical nature.

If the law of Causality were not active in the realm of the psychical, this ethical endeavor would be hopeless. Only where order reigns can the will accomplish anything. Only as we know the law of outer nature, and know what conditions must be produced in order to bring about a certain result, can we serve our own ends in this province; and the like is true in our relation to human nature. Here the problem is to find motives of the right sort and of sufficient strength. Of what use were all possible exertion if, under given conditions, the same motive were followed by now this, now the other entirely different decision. I am master of my future willing only in so far as a causal relation exists between my present and my future will. We find, therefore, that the reason why responsibility goes no further back in the causal chain than the will, is this: that it is the will which is to be acted on and altered. That which precedes the act of the will interests us, ethically, only in so far as it influences the will.

It is a strange assertion, sometimes made, that the consistent Determinist must be a mere spectator of his own and others' lives. As if one could feel no pain or pleasure and no desire to interfere, because one believes life to be subject to law. It is true that theoretical study may weaken practical interest; but Indeterminism is a theory as well as Determinism.