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

by Cora May Williams

Education, the second means by which the moral ideal is defended, is not identical with social progress, by which the moral ideal is itself changed, but is the individual progress included within each definite moral ideal. Education and progress are, however, inseparably bound together, in that education goes hand in hand with punishment, and in that it leads to the discovery of new ideals. If we take only the irregular line which includes the good, and discard the ideals which are exterminated or left behind, the movement of ideals is continuous with education, and progress may therefore be described as an education of society. The education of children has to put them in possession of the present moral achievement, and to make them independent individuals,—so to penetrate them with the moral order that it shall appear in them as spontaneous character. It is an evolving of an ideal already present; for, to be capable of education, a person must have already set foot on the right path.

As in the physical world, so in the moral, we have the survival of many different genera and species,—various ideals of conduct or institutions of life, some of which may be grouped together by strong resemblances, others of which stand to each other in the relation of lower to higher organisms; the survival of archaic institutions in the higher as well as their history of progress showing their affinities with the lower. "History is the palæontology of moral ideals," and provides us with a better means of studying the growth of morality than exists for the study of the growth of species. As in the organic world, varieties develop from species by a gradual and continuous movement of sentiment, each successful variation forming the basis of a new variation, and the differences of the varieties from each other and from the original species increasing with their distance from the original species, until the difference amounts to a difference of species. We may call these modifications "accidental," but, as in the physical world, they are so only as we regard them from the position occupied by a person before the event; they have their causes if we can find them. These causes are to be found in the contact of different minds. Variability depends to a considerable extent on the size of a genus, but only in so far as greater size involves greater complexity and variety of interests; the vast but homogeneous societies of the East being less progressive than the smaller but more complex ones of the West. "Where freer scope is left to individual inclinations or aptitudes, there the friction of mind against mind is more intense. New ideas are generated in the more vivid consciousness of the people, and life becomes more inventive."

Species developed from a common genus will show some common traits and some rules of mutual observance, savage peoples which have divided into tribes being an exception to the latter part of the statement, for the reason that lower societies have very little moral cohesion; they may be compared to lower organisms which reproduce themselves by fission, or to homogeneous colonies of animals, like sponges. Under the generic institutions we must not include those which arise merely as the result of similar circumstances. Ideals once formed advance at very different rates, though the tendency to divergence is always being corrected by the diffusion of ideas. But where one nation takes ideas from another, these ideas are not borrowed, in the sense that they come wholly from the other nation; there must have been, in the borrowing nation, a development of ideas up to the point that makes the borrowing possible,—a similar development to that of the nation from which the borrowing takes place, due to similar circumstances. The communication of moral ideas does not depend upon race-community, as is shown by the ready adoption of Western ideas by such nations as the Hindoos and Japanese.

In general language, we identify development and progress; and this is true also in the case of morality. Goodness means progress; wickedness, retrogression or else stagnation, which, compared with advance, is retrogression. "In changing from one form to another, morality changes from what is right under one set of conditions to what is right under another set, and such change from good to good is what we mean by becoming better. To deny this is to find some other standard of advance than in the actual movement which has taken place, to put an a priori conception of development in place of the facts." "The moral ideal is always, therefore, a progress, for either the society is single, and goodness represents the law of its advance, or if the society is part of a larger one, its ideal can be retrogressive only because the society is so far bad." "And since goodness and badness exhaust the field of moral possibilities, if the propositions that goodness means progress, and badness regress, are both true, we must be able to convert them, and maintain that all progress is due to goodness and all regress to badness." To do this, we must distinguish between degradation and a mere degeneration which involves a return to simpler conditions as an adaptation to changed environment. Such degeneration as adaptation to circumstances, in an individual or a society as a whole, is progress. Fish who become blind by living in the dark become thus better fitted to their circumstances, and the like is true of moral degeneration under simpler conditions. Old age and death are characteristic of the higher type of organism, in distinction from the lower types which, multiplying by fission, are practically eternal; they are conditions of the advantage of type, in which the individual is partaker. So a good society under simpler conditions is on the side of progress, though it may lie outside the main line of advance.

It is true that bad persons often help on progress, but the good they do lies in their representation of the will of society for progress, the evil lies in their use of this will as means to their own ends. It may be objected, too, that the good man is sometimes a hindrance to progress through stupidity; but to this is to be answered that intellect itself becomes morally characterized in action.

All events and institutions are thus determined by their conditions; but there is a movement forward distinguishable from the delay of stragglers and the resistance of enemies, and this distinction is enforced by the moral predicates of good and bad.

Our theory does not imply that whatever is, is right; such a statement involves the use of the word right in the sense of "correct," or "intelligible," "accountable by reflection." Nor is the doctrine fatalistic. Fatalism implies that men act at the impulse of some force which they do not understand; "but the history of mankind is the history of beings who, through their own gift of consciousness, subdue circumstances to their own characters." In judging a nation's development, we must not interpret it according to our own likings, as progression or retrogression; nor must we imagine retrogression from relaxation of duties in some certain directions, but must regard the society and its institutions as a whole.

The test of higher organization usually given is that of increasing differentiation of parts with corresponding specialization of function. But the main course of progress is not linear, or in one continuous direction; apparent reversions to former types are only apparent; the new type stands higher than the old. In other words, history moves in cycles. It follows, from this, that mere differentiation is insufficient for definition. While the differentiation advances, its significance alters, or, let us say, the relative places of specialization and of unity alter. Along with differentiation goes a process of integration. Great revolutions simplify. The result of greater and greater heterogeneity is to produce a new principle, which combines the warring elements. The definition of progress by increased differentiation is lacking in two ways: It tells us nothing of the forces by which progress is produced, and it gives no connected view of the actual facts of historical development. A general statement of progress in its formal sense is found in the conception of a struggle of ideals. But as in this struggle the survival of the fittest does not necessarily mean the destruction of those who represented the defeated ideal, but the supplanting of their ideal by another, the movement is one of comprehension, and we should expect to find, and do find, the history of morality exhibit the gradual development of a universal moral order, good not for one group of men but for all. It would be a misapprehension to regard this change as merely quantitative, as if the virtues were the same whether they applied on a larger or a smaller scale. "The quantitative extension is parallel with, and in reality proceeds from, a change in the conception of the human person himself." In primitive communities, the individual is so limited that he can hardly be called an individual at all. First among the Greeks do we find the person the embodiment of the social order, but in a limited sense. "When this limitation breaks down, and the individual stands forth as independent and self-conscious, the author of the laws he obeys, we have at the same time the extension of the area of persons with whom he is in moral relation."

"It matters little that the Western ideal of a society of humanity is realized to so slight an extent. The ideal exists and implies the inclusion of mankind." The principle of democracy, which we are engaged in working out, "continues, or perhaps supersedes, under much more complex conditions and over a wider range of institutions, the same principle as Christianity introduced." It is not merely an identical element in many individual states, but a comprehensive ideal. The power of naturalization, extradition laws, international action among the working classes, etc., imply this.

This "comprehension" is not merely one of breadth, but of depth as well: the ideal includes not only the present of mankind, but its whole future also. Duties have always been recognized to posterity, but the range of generations to whom they applied was small, and the interests which it was believed could be secured were limited also. Après moi le déluge describes a form of selfishness of all ages, but different ages have understood the après moi quite differently. At the present day, the range of responsibility is extending indefinitely.