A Handbook of Ethical Theory

by George Stuart Fullerton

7. Chapters XXIII to XXIX.—For the chapters on the Schools of the Moralists, XXIII to XXIX, I shall give briefer notes than I should have given, were the chapters not already so well provided with foot-notes.

So far as the first four of these chapters are concerned, I shall assume that enough has been said, drawing attention only to two points which concern Chapter XXIII.

It is very interesting to note that one of our best critics of intuitionism, Hemy Sidgwick, was himself an intuitionist. His Methods of Ethics deserves very close attention. Again Intuitions are often spoken of as if they had been shot out of a pistol, and had neither father nor mother. To understand them better it is only necessary to read chapter viii of Dr. H. R. Marshall's little book, Mind and Conduct, which shows how difficult it is to mark intuitions off sharply, and to treat them as if they had nothing in common with reason.

Those interested in the ethics of evolution, treated in Chapter XXVII, should not miss reading the fourth chapter of Darwin's Descent of Man. Huxley's essay, Evolution and Ethics, might be read. The "Prolegomena" to the essay is, however, much more valuable than the essay itself. Spencer's general theory of conduct is best gathered from his Data of Ethics, which was reprinted as Part I of his Principles of Ethics. The volume by C. M. Williams, entitled, A Review of Evolutionary Ethics, gives a convenient account of a dozen or more writers who have treated of ethics from the evolutionary standpoint. It is well not to overlook what Sidgwick has to say of evolution and ethics; see The Methods of Ethics, Book I, chapter ii, Sec 2.

As for Chapter XXVIII, on "Pessimism," it is enough, I think, to refer the reader to Book IV, in Schopenhauer's work on The World as Will and Idea. The Book is entitled The Assertion and Denial of the Will to Live, where Self-consciousness has been Attained. See also his supplementary chapters, xlvi, on "The Vanity and Suffering of Life," and xlviii, "On the Doctrine of the Denial of the Will to Live." For the doctrine of von Hartmann, see chapters xiii to xv, in the part of his work entitled, The Metaphysic of the Unconscious.

For the chapter on Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche, I shall give but a few references, though the literature on these writers is enormous. The English reader will find T. K. Abbott's translation of Kant's ethical writings a very convenient volume (third edition, London, 1883). The translation of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, by S. W. Dyde (1896), I have found good, where I have compared it with the original. The word "Right" in the title is unavoidably ambiguous, for the German word means both "right" and "law." Hegel is dealing, in a sense, with both. I have indicated, in a foot-note, that Nietzsche ought to be read in the original. He is a marvellous artist.

Perhaps I should add that Nietzsche will be read with most pleasure by those who do not attempt to find in his works a system of ethics. I recommend to the reader, especially, his three volumes: The Genealogy of Morals; Beyond Good and Evil; and Thus Spake Zarathustra; (New York, 1911).

8. CHAPTERS XXX TO XXXVI.—I shall not comment on Chapter XXX. It is sufficiently interpreted by what has been said earlier in this book. Nor do I think that Chapter XXXI needs to be discussed here. I need only say that many moralists have commented upon the negative aspect of the moral law. It will be remembered that the "demon" of Socrates—a dreadful translation—was a negative sign. I do not think that those who have dwelt upon the negative aspect of morality have reflected sufficiently upon the moral organization of society. We are put to school unavoidably as soon as we are born.

I shall not dwell upon Chapters XXXII and XXXIII. Here I appeal merely to the good sense of the reader.

But Chapter XXXIV demands more attention. He who is ignorant of history, and has come into no close contact with the organization and functioning of any state other than his own, is as unfit to pass judgment upon states generally, as is the man who has never been away from his native village to pass judgment upon towns generally—towns inhabited by various peoples and situated in different quarters of the globe. His lot may, it is true, happen to be cast in a good village; but how he is to tell that it is good, I cannot conceive. He has no standard of comparison.