(3) Right is not merely a means to good but has a place of its own in the moral consciousness. Many of our moral choices or judgments do not take the form of choice between right and wrong, or between duty and its opposite; they appear to be choices between goods. That is, we do not always consider our value as crystallized into a present standard or feel a tension between a resisting and an authoritative self. But when they do emerge they signify a distinct factor. What Moore says of good may be said also of right. Right means just "right," nothing else. That is, we mean that acts so characterized correspond exactly to a self in a peculiar attitude, viz., one of adequate standardizing and adjustment, of equilibrium, in view of all relations. The concept signifies that in finding our way into a moral world into which we are born in the process of valuing and judging, we take along the imagery of social judgment in which through language and behavior the individual is constantly adjusting himself, not only to the social institutions, and group organization but far more subtly and unconsciously to the social consciousness and attitudes.
This conception of an order to which the act must refer has usually been regarded as peculiarly a "rational" factor. It is, however, rather an order of social elements, of a nature of persons, than of a "nature of things." In savage life the position of father, wife, child, guest, or other members of the household, is one of the most prominent facts of the situation. The relationship of various totem groups and inter-marrying groups is the very focus of moral consciousness. Even in the case of such a cosmic conception of order as Dike and Themis, Rita and Tao, the "Way" is not impersonal cosmos. It is at least quasi-personal. And if we say such primitive myth has no bearing on what the "nature" of right or the "true" meaning of right is, it is pertinent to repeat that concepts without percepts are empty; that the term means nothing except the conceptual interpretation of a unique synthetic process in which an act placed in relation to a standard is thereby given new meaning. So long as custom or law forms the only or the dominant factor in the process, we have little development of the ideal concept right as distinct from a factual standard. But when reason and intelligence enter, particularly when that creative activity of intelligence enters which attempts a new construction of ends, a new ordering of possible experience, then the standardizing process is set free; a new self with new possibilities of relation seeks expression. The concept "right" reflects the standardizing, valuing process of a synthetic order and a synthetic self. Duty born similarly in the world of social relations and reflecting especially the tension between the individual and the larger whole is likewise given full moral significance when it becomes a tension within the synthetic self. And as thus reflecting the immediate attitudes of the self to an ideal social order both right and duty are not to be treated merely as means to any value which does not include as integrant factors just what these signify.
This view is contrary to that of Moore, for whom "right does and can mean nothing but 'cause of a good result,' and is thus identical with useful."[70] The right act is that which has the best consequences.[71] Similarly duty is that action which will cause more good to exist in the Universe than any possible alternative. It is evident that this makes it impossible for any finite mind to assert confidently that any act is right or a duty. "Accordingly it follows that we never have any reason to suppose that an action is our duty: we can never be sure that any action will produce the greatest value possible.[72]
Whatever the convenience of such a definition of right and duty for a simplified ethics it can hardly be claimed to accord with the moral consciousness, for men have notoriously supposed certain acts to be duty. To say that a parent has no reason to suppose that it is his duty to care for his child is more than paradox. And a still greater contradiction to the morality of common sense inheres in the doctrine that the right act is that which has the best consequences. Considering all the good to literature and free inquiry which has resulted from the condemnation of Socrates it is highly probable—or at least it is arguable—that the condemnation had better results than an acquittal would have yielded. But it would be contrary to our ordinary use of language to maintain that this made the act right. Or to take a more recent case: the present war may conceivably lead to a more permanent peace. The "severities," practised by one party, may stir the other to greater indignation and lead ultimately to triumph of the latter. Will the acts in question be termed right by the second party if they actually have this effect? On this hypothesis the more outrageous an act and the greater the reaction against it, the better the consequences are likely to be and hence the more reason to call the act right and a duty. The paradox results from omitting from right the elements of the immediate situation and considering only consequences. The very meaning of the concept right, implies focussing attention upon the present rather than upon the future. It suggests a cross-section of life in its relations. If the time process were to be arrested immediately after our act I think we might still speak of it as right or wrong. In trying to judge a proposed act we doubtless try to discover what it will mean, that is, we look at consequences. But these consequences are looked upon as giving us the meaning of the present act and we do not on this account subordinate the present act to these consequences. Especially we do not mean to eliminate the significance of this very process of judgment. It is significant that in considering what are the intrinsic goods Moore enumerates personal affection and the appreciation of beauty, and with less positiveness, true belief, but does not include any mention of the valuing or choosing or creative consciousness.
(4) If we regard right as the concept which reflects the judgment of standardizing our acts by some ideal order, questions arise as to the objectivity of this order and the fixed or moving character of the implied standard. Rashdall lays great stress upon the importance of objectivity: "Assuredly there is no scientific problem upon which so much depends as upon the answer we give to the question whether the distinction which we are accustomed to draw between right and wrong belongs to the region of objective truth like the laws of mathematics and of physical science, or whether it is based upon an actual emotional constitution of individual human beings."[73] The appraisement of the various desires and impulses by myself and other men is "a piece of insight into the true nature of things."[74] While these statements are primarily intended to oppose the moral sense view of the judgment, they also bear upon the question whether right is something fixed. The phrase "insight into the true nature of things" suggests at once the view that the nature of things is quite independent of any attitude of human beings toward it. It is something which the seeker for moral truth may discover but nothing which he can in any way modify. It is urged that if we are to have any science of ethics at all what was once right must be conceived as always right in the same circumstances.[75]
I hold no brief for the position—if any one holds the position—that in saying "this is right" I am making an assertion about my own feelings or those of any one else. As already stated the function of the judging process is to determine objects, with reference to which we say "is" or "is not." The emotional theory of the moral consciousness does not give adequate recognition to this. But just as little as the process of the moral consciousness is satisfied by an emotional theory of the judgment does it sanction any conception of objectivity which requires that values are here or there once for all; that they are fixed entities or "a nature of things" upon which the moral consciousness may look for its information but upon which it exercises no influence. The process of attempting to give—or discover—moral values is a process of mutual determination of object and agent. We have to do in morals not with a nature of things but with natures of persons. The very characteristic of a person as we have understood it is that he is synthetic, is actually creating something new by organizing experiences and purposes, by judging and choosing. Objectivity does not necessarily imply changelessness.
Whether right is a term of fixed and changeless character depends upon whether the agents are fixed units, either in fact or in ideal. If, as we maintain, right is the correlate of a self confronting a world of other persons conceived as all related in an order, the vital question is whether this order is a fixed or a moving order. "Straight" is a term of fixed content just because we conceive space in timeless terms; it is by its very meaning a cross-section of a static order. But a world of living intelligent agents in social relations is in its very presuppositions a world of activity, of mutual understanding and adjustment. Rationalistic theory, led astray by geometrical conceptions, conceived that a universal criterion must be like a straight line, a fixed and timeless—or eternal—entity. But in such an order of fixed units there could be no selection, no adjustment to other changing agents, no adventure upon the new untested possibility which marks the advance of every great moral idea, in a word, no morality of the positive and constructive sort. And if it be objected that the predicate of a judgment must be timeless whatever the subject, that the word "is" as Plato insists cannot be used if all flows, we reply that if right=the correlate of a moving order, of living social intelligent beings, it is quite possible to affirm "This is according to that law." If our logic provides no form of judgment for the analysis of such a situation it is inadequate for the facts which it would interpret. But in truth mankind's moral judgments have never committed themselves to any such implication. We recognize the futility of attempting to answer simply any such questions as whether the Israelites did right to conquer Canaan or Hamlet to avenge his father.
(5) The category of right has usually been closely connected, if not identified, with reason or "cognitive" activity as contrasted with emotion. Professor Dewey on the contrary has pointed out clearly[76] the impossibility of separating emotion and thought. "To put ourselves in the place of another ... is the surest way to attain universality and objectivity of moral knowledge." "The only truly general, the reasonable as distinct from the merely shrewd or clever thought, is the generous thought." But in the case of certain judgments such as those approving fairness and the general good Sidgwick finds a rational intuition. "The principle of impartiality is obtained by considering the similarity of the individuals that make up a Logical Whole or Genus."[77] Rashdall challenges any but a rationalistic ethics to explain fairness as contrasted with partiality of affection.
There is without question a properly rational or intellectual element in the judgment of impartiality, namely, analysis of the situation and comparison of the units. But what we shall set up as our units—whether we shall treat the gentile or the barbarian or negro as a person, as end and not merely means, or not, depends on something quite other than reason. And this other factor is not covered by the term "practical reason." In fact no ethical principle shows better the subtle blending of the emotional and social factors with the rational. For the student of the history of justice is aware that only an extraordinarily ingenious exegesis could regard justice as having ever been governed by a mathematical logic. The logic of justice has been the logic of a we-group gradually expanding its area. Or it has been the logic of a Magna Charta—a document of special privileges wrested from a superior by a strong group, and gradually widening its benefits with the admission of others into the favored class. Or it has been the logic of class, in which those of the same level are treated alike but those of different levels of birth or wealth are treated proportionately. Yet it would seem far-fetched to maintain that the countrymen of Euclid and Aristotle were deficient in the ability to perform so simple a reasoning process as the judgment one equals one, or that men who developed the Roman Law, or built the cathedrals of the Middle Ages, were similarly lacking in elementary analysis. Inequality rather than equality has been the rule in the world's justice. It has not only been the practice but the approved principle. It still is in regard to great areas of life. In the United States there is no general disapproval of the great inequalities in opportunity for children, to say nothing of inequalities in distribution of wealth. In England higher education is for the classes rather than for the masses. In Prussia the inequality in voting strength of different groups and the practical immunity of the military class from the constraints of civil law seem to an American unfair. The western states of the Union think it unfair to restrict the suffrage to males and give women no voice in the determination of matters of such vital interest to them as the law of divorce, the guardianship of children, the regulation of women's labor, the sale of alcoholic liquors, the protection of milk and food supply. Are all these differences of practice and conviction due to the fact that some people use reason while others do not? Of course in every case excellent reasons can be given for the inequality. The gentile should not be treated as a Jew because he is not a Jew. The slave should not be treated as a free citizen because he is not a free citizen. The churl should not have the same wergeld as the thane because he is lowborn. The more able should possess more goods. The woman should not vote because she is not a man. The reasoning is clear and unimpeachable if you accept the premises, but what gives the premises? In every case cited the premise is determined largely if not exclusively by social or emotional factors. If reason can then prescribe equally well that the slave should be given rights because he is a man of similar traits or denied rights because he has different traits from his master, if the Jew may either be given his place of equality because he hath eyes, hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, or denied equality because he differs in descent, if a woman is equal as regards taxpaying but unequal as regards voting, it is at least evident that reason is no unambiguous source of morality. The devil can quote Scripture and it is a very poor reasoner who cannot find a reason for anything that he wishes to do. A partiality that is more or less consistently partial to certain sets or classes is perhaps as near impartiality as man has yet come, whether by a rational faculty or any other.
Is it, then, the intent of this argument merely to reiterate that reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions? On the contrary, the intent is to substitute for such blanket words as reason and passions a more adequate analysis. And what difference will this make? As regards the particular point in controversy it will make this difference: the rationalist having smuggled in under the cover of reason the whole moral consciousness then proceeds to assume that because two and two are always four, or the relations of a straight line are timeless, therefore ethics is similarly a matter of fixed standards and timeless goods. A legal friend told me that he once spent a year trying to decide whether a corporation was or was not a person and then concluded that the question was immaterial. But when the supreme court decided that a corporation was a person in the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment it thereby made the corporation heir to the rights established primarily for the negro. Can the moral consciousness by taking the name "reason" become heir to all the privileges of the absolute idea and to the timelessness of space and number?