A Handbook of Ethical Theory

by George Stuart Fullerton

(2) In recognizing the social will as something deeper and broader than the will of the individual, as having its roots in the remote past and as reaching into the distant future, it admits the futility of devising utopian schemes which would bless humanity in defiance of the actual expressions of the social will revealed in the development of human societies. The whim of the individual cannot well be substituted for the settled purpose of the community—a purpose ripened by generations of experience, and adjusted to what is possible under existing conditions.

(3) On the other hand, it distinguishes between lower and higher ethical codes, or codes lower or higher in certain of their aspects. It sets a standard of comparison; it recognizes progress towards a goal.

(4) And, in all this, it does not appear to decide arbitrarily either what is the goal of man's moral efforts or what means must be adopted to attain to it. It rests upon a study of man; man as he has been, man as he is, in all the manifold relations in which he stands to his environment, physical and social.

There are other ethical theories in the field, of course. Some of them are advocated by men of original genius and of no little learning. Some deserve more attention than others, but all should have a hearing, at least. A close scrutiny will often reveal that advocates of different theories are by no means so far apart as a hasty reading of their works would suggest. Writers the most diverse may assist one to a comprehension of one's own theory. Its implications may be developed, objections to it may be suggested, its strong points may stand revealed. By no means the least important part of a work on ethics is its treatment of the schools of the moralists. If it be written with any degree of fairness, it may contain what will serve the reader with an antidote to erroneous opinions on the part of the writer. To a study of the most important schools of the moralists I shall now turn.

PART VII

THE SCHOOLS OF THE MORALISTS

CHAPTER XXIII

INTUITIONISM

90. WHAT IS IT?—"We come into the world," said Epictetus, "with no natural notion of a right-angled triangle, or of a quarter-tone, or of a half-tone; but we learn each of these things by a certain transmission according to art; and for this reason those who do not know them do not think that they know them. But as to good and evil, and beautiful and ugly, and becoming and unbecoming, and happiness and misfortune, and proper and improper, and what we ought to do and what we ought not to do, who ever came into the world without having an innate idea of them?" [Footnote: Discourses, Book II, chapter xi, translation by GEORGE LONG.] Seneca adds his testimony to the self-luminous character of moral truth: "Whatever things tend to make us better or happier are either obvious or easily discovered." [Footnote: On Benefits, Book VII, chapter i.]

With the general spirit of these utterances the typical intuitionist is in sympathy, although he need not assent to the doctrine of innate ideas, nor need he hold that all moral truths are equally self-evident. There are intuitionists of various classes, and there are sufficiently notable differences of opinion. Still, all intuitionists believe that some moral truth, at least, is revealed to the individual by direct inspection (intueor), and that we must be content with such evidence and must not seek for proof. It may be maintained that our moral judgments—or some of them—are the result of "an immediate discernment of the natures of things by the understanding." and appeal may be made to the analogy furnished by mathematical truths. [Footnote: This appeal has been made by famous intuitionists from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth— Cudworth, More, Locke, Clarke, Price, Whewell.]