84. REASONABLE SOCIAL ENDS.—The will of the individual, when affirmed to be rational or irrational, is, therefore, referred to the background of the social will. But the social will is more or less different in different communities, and in the one community at different stages of its development. Is there any measure of the degree of rationality of the social will itself? is there any standard to which its different expressions may be referred?
We may criticise a community as we criticise an individual man even when he is taken as abstracted from his social setting. The man's choices may be blind, conflicting, wayward, and ill-adapted to serve his interests taken as a whole. In the last chapter we saw that a community may resemble such a man. It may be ignorant, superstitious, short-sighted, and in conflict with itself. The social will as actually revealed may be an imperfect and inconsistent thing. Here enlightenment and inner harmonization are called for, to set the social will free.
But even where the will of a community is something more definite and consistent than this, it may be condemned by the moral judgment of the enlightened. An appeal may be made from the will of the community in the narrower sense to that of the larger community. The limits of nation, race and religion may be transcended, and we may appeal to humanity as such, refusing to recognize the will of any lesser unit as really ultimate. He who occupies the one standpoint is apt to speak of defending his legitimate rights, or of extending to subject races the blessings of civilization. He who takes his stand upon the other may talk of lust of dominion, or desire for economic advantage. The one may use the term righteous indignation; the other, the word anger. The moral judgment passed upon an act depends upon the concept under which men manage to bring it. What is approved by the tribal ethics may be abhorrent to the ethics of humanity.
But the larger social will, so far as it has gotten itself expressed at all, seems to remain something vague and indefinite. It is appealed to as rational; but how indicate clearly the end which it sets before itself and the obligations which it lays upon mankind?
The difficulty of describing in detail the ultimate ends of the real social will has led some writers to speak in terms of exaggerated vagueness. The mere idea in a man "of something, he knows not what, which he may and should become" can give little guidance to action; nor can one aim with much confidence at a goal of which "we can only speak or think in negatives." [Footnote: Prolegomena to Ethics, Sec Sec 192, 172, 180. But GREEN is not always so indefinite. He is on the right track. He reverences the social will and the historical development of the social order.]
But it is not necessary to speak in this way. We may form some conception of the real, rational social will, without being compelled to know all that man is capable of becoming and without being able to forecast the details of his environment in the distant future.
We may attain to our conception by determining clearly the nature of the aims man sets before himself in proportion to his growing rationality. We can see in what direction man moves as he develops and becomes enlightened. From this standpoint, the aims of the rational social will appear to be as follows:
(1) The harmonious satisfaction of the impulses and desires of man.
(2) Such an unfolding of his powers as will increase their range and variety, broaden man's horizon, and give him an increased control over erratic impulses.
(3) The bringing about of a social state in which the will of each individual within a community counts for something, and not merely the will of a chosen few.