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

by Cora May Williams

As far as morality concerns itself with the individual, the good act implies a certain adjustment of functions to one another, too much in any one direction implying a defect in others. "The good life as a whole is a system of consecutive acts, where each function has its limits prescribed for it by the demands of all the other functions." And the good character is "an order or systematic arrangement of volitions." The goodness of an act is thus a matter of equilibration or adjustment of the elements of an individual's nature. In this proportion or adjustment consists the reasonableness, rationality (ratio, λογος) of good conduct. This does not mean that the principle of morality is the result of reason, for moral adjustment is no more specially the work of reason than of any other mental faculty.

This account of good character uses ideas which apply, mutatis mutandis, to the life of any organism, as well as to the mind of man; it merely explains, in terms of human experience, the elements involved in the conception of organization; the difference lies simply in the nature of the elements involved in the adjustment, the elements being, in the case before us, conscious acts. To the question whether such a definition of morality would not apply rather to conduct than to character, and whether, the volitions being conceived as a series in time, it does not dissolve the unity of character, may be answered that conduct and character have already been shown to be identical, and that unity can no more be denied to the series of acts involved than it can be denied to the growing plant or animal whose functions are successive. The unity conditioned by time is a unity characterized by succession, as that of space by extension. The objection, as it gathers its strength from a persuasion that the good character should be described by the feelings or sentiments of any one time, is legitimate; good conduct is built upon a man's needs or desires and is defined as satisfying every part of his nature in its proportion; so that an equilibrium of the emotions and the moral sentiments is involved in morality, and any sentiment is moral which can be equilibrated with the rest. "The good man may be described either as an equilibrated order of conduct, or as an equilibrium of moral sentiments or of the parts of his nature. Nevertheless, the order of conduct is a prior conception to that of structural equilibrium." In a machine, the combination of parts is made in order to produce the motion of the engine, and the equilibrium is maintained by the motion. "In the organism, the bodily structure retains its proportion only in so far as it is in physiological action, and this physiological action subserves the conduct of the organism," while "in like manner the equilibrium of moral sentiments exists only through conduct and is determined by the requirements of conduct." The equilibrium is effected simultaneously both for conduct and the moral structure. The ideal is a plan of conduct, ideal in that it is never fully attained. The ideal is hypothetical in two senses. It supposes that every member of the order is good, whereas no life contains good acts only; and that the order itself remains permanent, whereas morality is necessarily progressive. Nevertheless, it is to be observed that the ideal is a realized ideal. It is realized in every good act, since the good act is the act which has the shape it would wear in the ideal order. "Though it is adjusted to imaginary elements, it realizes the whole so far as its own particular share is concerned."

Morality implies the existence of society. It is useless to inquire what would be moral in case the human individual were an isolated being; the fact is that he is not so, and that all moral judgment implies not only the judgment of other individuals besides the acting individual, but also the function of the acting individual as a member of a society. Yet each member of a society has his special individual work, so that duty varies according to individual circumstances, and so far from its being true that morality is not a respecter of persons, it is a fact that it is always a respecter of persons. This does not deny that there are certain common bounds of morality, which allow the formation of some general propositions; nor does it mean that each individual is at liberty to construct his own moral precepts. The individuality of morality, which finds a place or vocation for each individual, involves an equilibrium between the members of society, in which consists the morality of the whole.

The so-called self-regarding virtues are social as well as self-regarding; their disregard involves evil, not to the individual alone, but to others also. It may be objected that acts and thoughts which can never be known to others are condemned by conscience. In answer it must be observed:—

(1) That the knowledge of others is a matter of degree; my friends know my actions; and in order to judge an action, it is not necessary to suppose the whole nation looking on.

(2) That as personal morality becomes more and more complex, and hence knowledge by others less and less possible, we leave the judgment of an act more to the conscience of the individual, as vicegerent of the moral law. "Acts which are wrong when nobody knows them have come to be so by a process beginning with simple acts which are known, that is, known in their outward appearance." The act, known or unknown, leaves its impress upon character, raising or lowering the efficiency of the agent; and hence is judged good or bad. The study of art and science has, thus, moral value, as influencing character.

Good and bad acts and conduct are thus to be distinguished by their adjustment or non-adjustment to the social order. The adjustment takes place in a similar manner as in a trial of strength, and the compromise between the different individuals must be taken as measuring the actual forces which were engaged.

The social organism has both its morphological, or structural, and its physiological or functional aspect; and here, once more, the order of functions is a prior conception to the structural order; in the society, conduct bears to structure the relation which physiological action in the body bears to the bodily structure. The social ideal is doubly hypothetical, implying that all members of the society are good and that society is statical.

That to which moral judgment applies with regard to the individual's relation to society, is the adjustment of individual wills regarded either as directly appearing or as latent and capable of acting, the occasion being given. The moral principle in society as a whole is thus, as in the case of the individual, a rational one, and Aristotle rightly gives the same name (ορθος λογος) to it as to the principle of individual action. The moral individual is the reproduction in small of the social order. But "the two conditions that the individual must be a harmony within himself, and that he must possess all the powers that are required of him for the purposes of society, are not different, but identical." For the absence of such powers implies the absence of adjustment to his conditions, failing which adjustment the inner harmony is impossible, although life may be continued, just as it may be continued under diseased physical conditions.