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

by Cora May Williams

Good men may thus be said to conform to a certain type or ideal; but this type is not merely something to which they are fashioned, but to which they themselves are the contributory elements. Hence the social ideal is a species of which all good men are the individual instances; and the species exists, not, as in the case of natural science, as a generalization in the mind of the observer or as an identical plan upon which the members are organized, not as a mere collection of individuals, but as in itself an organism. "Let it not be objected that, since no society is in perfect equilibrium, and the ideal exists only in good men, the ideal is therefore as much a creation of the observer's mind as a natural species. An ideal implies no contrast of observer and observed: conduct is something mental: the ideal is a reality of mind, existing in the minds of those who act upon it. The social ideal has thus a concrete existence in the collective action of good men."

In this manner, the supposed independence of the tendencies towards Individualism and Universalism disappears, the harmony of the individual and his harmony with society being identical—a true independence being equivalent to true coöperation.

Morality implying adjustment to the ideal order, a realization of the bearings of our acts is important. But we need no special moral faculty to teach us morality; it is prompted by thoughts and feelings that, as the result of a process of compromise, are thoughts and feelings adjusted to a social order.

Obligation "expresses that an act is the act required." "It is that relation in which the single part of the order stands to the whole order, when it is confronted by the whole," whether we consider the single act in relation to the whole character of the individual, or the single individual in his relations to society. "Duty in the abstract is the name which comprehends obligation in all its details; a duty in the concrete is any good act regarded in its relation to the whole. On the other hand, the whole has authority against its parts, and every particular duty is said to have authority just so far as it is backed by the whole mass of duties," as the command of a sovereign has authority because it gives expression to the will of the whole society over which he presides. Obligation "corresponds to the necessity under which an organism lies of acting in a certain manner in order to conform to its type." Duty is thus not necessarily antagonistic to inclination, as Kant conceived it, since, in the good man, inclinations are adjusted to the requirements of social life; and obligation is thus different from compulsion, which, as attendant on authority, applies to the bad, not the good, man. The negative side of compulsion is responsibility, which implies that, in the case of transgression, the person will be called to account. Duty, though thus free from the idea of antagonism, is itself always negative, implying subjection of the individual to the larger order. It is from this negativity that duty lends itself to the legal idea of compulsion, and in general wears a legal garb.

In law, rights and duties are correlative, the right of one implying duties of others, and vice versa; but in morals, rights and duties are not merely correlative but identical; it is a duty to insist on rights in so far as these rights are moral, not merely legal, and the individual has a right to the performance of duty.

The moral judgment is a judgment on a fact, but expresses, nevertheless, a fact also; it expresses an adjustment to an ideal order, which, if ideal, is yet a fact, although never realized in its entirety. Thus morality is not a mere matter of opinion. Opinions may differ with regard to a fact of morality as different individuals differ in the apprehension of a physical fact. An action is not right simply because I think it is so; but the opinion of the good man represents what is really good.

Goodness is a mental fact; the apprehension of goodness, as the passing of judgment upon it, is different from it; but it is nevertheless, in another sense, the goodness of the good man which approves or is the approbation of the good act; and "badness exists in the mind of the good man and is known as disapprobation." The quality of an action is that which excites approbation; its goodness or adjustment is nothing but the approbation of the good man, but not of other men. In like manner, duty and the sense of duty are the same thing. When the act judged is presented to the mind only as idea, the feeling of approbation or disapprobation is that which we know as the working of the moral sense or conscience.

It is this truth that goodness and approbation are identical that Intuitionism builds upon. Intuitionism, however, regards goodness as some new quality of action, peculiar and inexplicable; while a true analysis looks upon goodness as no new quality, the moral judgment merely placing a mark upon any action as conforming to a certain order or equilibrated system wanted.

There is in the good man a vague mass of moral sentiments and emotions; and when the idea of any act comes in contact with these, a feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction arises, according as the idea fuses with this mass of sentiments or fails in adjustment to them. Moral promptings are merely promptings which have been adjusted on one side and the other until they have come to be in harmony with social conditions; they grow out of the natural feelings by the process of adjustment. The word "conscience," as it is more generally used, seems to emphasize the element of reflection in a greater degree than "moral sense." The explanation of the apparent independence of conscience is merely that, in the good man, the moral order is realized, and action from moral principle takes place spontaneously. In so far as this is true, he is, in the ethical sense, free, yet not free in the sense that he is to be bound by his own conscience alone in opposition to the judgment of all other consciences; "on the contrary, the conscience sits as a tribunal on a man's acts or intentions, just because it is the representative of the moral order."