To say this is to admit that morality varies with different temperaments and different needs. What is best for one person is not necessarily best for another; what is right for an early stage of civilization is not always right for a later. The patriarchal family was a source of strength in primitive society; today it would be a needless tyranny. Life in a tropical isle frees man from the necessity of many virtues which a more rigorous climate entails. The poet needs to live in a different way from the coal-heaver. Just so far as our individual and racial needs vary-our real needs, not our supposed needs and pathological desires (and always bearing in mind the needs of others)-just so far is what is right for one different from what is right for another. This is no condemnation of eudsemonistic morality. On the contrary, a clear recognition of this truth would happily relax the sometimes over-rigid conventions of society, its cut-and- dried- made-on-one-pattern code, and make it more elastic and suitable to individual needs.
However, we are not so different from one another as we are apt to think. The extenuation of sin on the plea that the "artistic temperament" demands this, or a "sensitive nature" needs that, is much overdone. Differences in temperament are superficial compared with the miles of underlying strata of plain human nature. "A man's a man for a' that," and must submit to the rules for human life. The man of "artistic temperament" does not know himself well enough. He feels superficial and transient cravings; he ignores his underlying needs, and the fundamental duties which, in common with all other men, he owes to his fellows.
The standard of morality is absolute and objective, then, for each individual, and approximately the same for all human beings. He is wise who seeks not to mould his life according to his longings, but who accepts the rules of the game and follows the paths blazed by the seers and doers before him. Only those individuals and those nations have achieved success that have been willing to learn and follow the ideals which life itself imposes, the eternal laws which religious men call the will of God.
For criticisms of the account of morality here defended: F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book II, chap. II. J. Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, book II, chaps, I, II. T. H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, book in, chap. I, first half, book IV, chap. III. Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, chap. XIV. J. S. Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, 2d ed, chap. vi. H. Rashdall, Theory of Good and Evil, book I, chap, III; book II, chaps, I, II. W. Fite, Introductory Study of Ethics, part I. G. E. Moore, Ethics, chap. VII. In rebuttal of some of these arguments: J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, chaps, II and IV. H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, chaps, IX, X. Leslie Stephen, Science of Ethics, chap. X.
CHAPTER XIII
ALTERNATIVE THEORIES
AFTER this summary answer to the commoner objections to our account of morality, we should notice a few of the more persistently recurrent formulas that seem inconsistent with this explanation of its fundamental nature.
Is morality "categorical," beyond need of justification?
To Kant and his followers, as well as to many less philosophical minds, the justification of morality by its utility has seemed unworthy. Morality is much more ultimate and imperious. The pursuit of happiness is not binding; morality is. The way to attain happiness is dubious and variable; the commandments of morality are clear-cut and certain. Different people find happiness in different activities; the laws of morality are universal and changeless. Morality, therefore, is prior to the pursuit of happiness; its dictates are known by an independent faculty. There is in us all an unanalyzable and unavoidable "ought"; ours not to reason why; ours but to do-and die, if need be. Morality is not a means to employ IF we wish happiness; in that case its precepts would be but hypothetical, if you wish happiness, do so and so. No, its commands are categorical. The inescapable fact of "oughtness" is the bottom fact upon which our ethics must be built. To the truth in this manner of speech we must all respond. As we have seen, morality is not purely subjective and relative; it carries the authority not of opinion but of fact. The right, the best way, IS unconditionally best, whether we are wise enough to desire it or no. The greatest good IS the greatest good, however narrow or short- sighted our impulses. Kant expresses eloquently the absolute and inescapable nature of duty in its perennial opposition to our transitory and nickering desires.
(1) But Kant is unfair in his picturesque contrast between the perplexities attending the pursuit of happiness and the certainty attachable to morality. As a matter of observation, moral codes have varied quite as much as man's different ways of finding happiness. Cases of moral perplexity are as common as cases of uncertainty with regard to the road to happiness; there is no such universality and changelessness about morality as he assumes. If a certain code seems fixed and indubitable to us, it is in large degree because we have become accustomed to it and given it our allegiance; a wider acquaintance with other codes, contemporary or past, would shake our confidence. Some fundamental rules are unquestionable-rules against murder, rape, etc.; but just as unquestionable is the fact that these acts make against human happiness.