A rule is ethical when the conduct prescribed is instrumental to the development of personality. Respect for reputation is ethical because reputation is a help to the development of personality. A man projects his mind outward, so to speak, into the productions of his mind. As a thinking being he anchors himself in outside reality. He transfers himself, as it were, into an external thing,—a discovery, an invention, the expression of an idea in apt language,—each a thing that goes on existing independently of himself. To deny his connection with it is to infringe upon his personality, to efface his personality in so far as his personality is enshrined in his mental product.
Again, a man’s reputation as a scientist or scholar is a prop to his personality as a thinker. A man can never be quite certain of the validity of his thinking until it is approved by the consensus of the competent. To win that approbation is to know that as far as he has gone he is on sure ground. He can thence proceed, can turn toward new problems with a sense of power and a measure of self-confidence not previously attained. To rob him of his reputation is to deprive him of this invaluable aid to further mental development.[57]
Coming next to moral reputation, we find that the ethical rule requiring respect for the moral character of others is even more exacting, and that any contravention of it deserves an even more strenuous reprobation. The Decalogue prohibits the bearing of false witness and this rule is extensible from courts of law to ordinary conversation, since the principle involved is the same. The Sermon on the Mount menacingly warns against judging others: “Judge not that ye be not judged.” Buddha enjoins his followers to refrain from malicious gossip, and includes a prohibition to this effect among the principal pronouncements of his religion. All the great teachers of ethics and religion insist on this point, perhaps because the natural propensities of men constantly tend in the opposite direction, and are so hard to restrain. To stab one’s neighbor in the back, morally speaking, to insinuate base motives, to spread damaging reports about him, to suggest as possibly and then as probably true rumors which one does not positively know to be untrue, to allow private repugnance to take the place of evidence,—are infringements of the moral reputation of others with some of which notoriously many even of the so-called best people are chargeable. I do not here speak of the grosser attacks, attacks on character inspired by envy, rivalry, and greed. The soundness of the rule is generally admitted, though its violations are past belief and without number.
But is the rule itself as to moral reputation tenable? There is a difference between intellectual and moral reputation at which we must at least cast a glance. Intellectual reputation is a fairly safe index of merit; moral reputation is not. A man’s mind is reflected in his intellectual performances. Is the same true of his moral character? Is not the moral character an interior, elusive thing? The real character escapes the eye of the outside spectator and judge; and if this be so, why should it be so important a matter to safeguard a man’s moral reputation, seeing that the reputation he deserves is past finding out? A public official, for instance, is accused of corrupt practices. He is innocent, and his friends and he are indignant at the damaging accusations brought against him. But if not guilty of the palpable derelictions with which he is charged, yet, in view of his opportunities and education, he may not be less blameworthy for other acts with which he has not been charged, and in his heart of hearts he knows that this is so. Why then, this outcry?
Other examples might be adduced. The honor of a young woman is attacked by the circulation of atrocious rumors, and the reaction at this most sensitive point is certain to be extreme when the falseness of the accusation is exposed. But is outward decorum, correct behavior, always a sure sign of inward purity?
There is this difference then between the intellectual and the moral character. The one can be measured, the other cannot. But the reply to these sophistical objections is still the same as before. The purpose of the ethical rule is to furnish aids in the development of personality. The aim in view is not genetic, but teleological, not to determine how far in analyzing a man’s character down to the bottom he may be found to be already admirable, but to help him in attaining excellence, by progressively advancing toward strength and virtue. And moral reputation is a great help to this end. It is a prop on which he can lean. He who does right acts and has the credit for them, is thereby encouraged to do other right acts. And if the inner voice whispers, as it is sure to do in the finer natures, that the good opinion of his fellows, founded on his correct deportment, is undeserved, the shame of it may lead him to more determined efforts to merit the character which, on however insufficient evidence, is attributed to him.
Reputation is sacred because it is an almost indispensable means to further mental and moral progress.
CHAPTER VI
THE MEANING OF FORGIVENESS
In the last chapter we treated the imputation of evil to the innocent. We must now consider the right attitude toward actual evildoers.