§ 3. FINAL STATEMENT
Duty and a Growing Character.—Duty is what is owed by a partial isolated self embodied in established, facile, and urgent tendencies, to that ideal self which is presented in aspirations which, since they are not yet formed into habits, have no organized hold upon the self and which can get organized into habitual tendencies and interests only by a more or less painful and difficult reconstruction of the habitual self. For Kant's fixed and absolute separation between the self of inclination and the self of reason, we substitute the relative and shifting distinction between those factors of self which have become so definitely organized into set habits that they take care of themselves, and those other factors which are more precarious, less crystallized, and which depend therefore upon conscious acknowledgment and intentionally directed affection. The consciousness of duty grows out of the complex character of the self; the fact that at any given time, it has tendencies relatively set, ingrained, and embodied in fixed habits, while it also has tendencies in process of making, looking to the future, taking account of unachieved possibilities. The former give the solid relatively formed elements of character; the latter, its ideal or unrealized possibilities. Each must play into the other; each must help the other out.
The conflict of duty and desire is thus an accompaniment of a growing self. Spencer's complete disappearance of obligation would mean an exhausted and fossilized self; wherever there is progress, tension arises between what is already accomplished and what is possible. In a being whose "reach should exceed his grasp," a conflict within the self making for the readjustment of the direction of powers must always be found. The value of continually having to meet the expectations and requirements of others is in keeping the agent from resting on his oars, from falling back on habits already formed as if they were final. The phenomena of duty in all their forms are thus phenomena attendant upon the expansion of ends and the reconstruction of character. So far, accordingly, as the recognition of duty is capable of operating as a distinct rëenforcing motive, it operates most effectively, not as an interest in duty, or law in the abstract, but as an interest in progress in the face of the obstacles found within character itself.
LITERATURE
The most important references on the subject of duty are given in the text. To these may be added: Ladd, Philosophy of Conduct, chs. v. and xv.; Mackenzie, Manual, Part I., ch. iv.; Green, Prolegomena, pp. 315-320, 353-354 and 381-388; Sharp, International Journal of Ethics, Vol. II., pp. 500-513; Muirhead, Elements of Ethics, Book II., ch. ii.; McGilvary, Philosophical Review, Vol. XI., pp. 333-352; Stephen, Science of Ethics, pp. 161-171; Sturt, International Journal of Ethics, Vol. VII., 334-345; Schurman, Philosophical Review, Vol. III., pp. 641-654; Guyau, Sketch of Morals, without Obligation or Sanction.
FOOTNOTES:
[166] Last Essays on Church and Religion, preface.
[167] Historically it has often taken theological form. Thus Paley defined virtue as "doing good to mankind in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness." Of obligation he said, "A man is said to be obliged, when he is urged by a violent motive resulting from the command of another."
[168] The earlier English utilitarians (though not called by that name), such as Tucker and Paley, assert that upon this earth there is no exact coincidence of the right and the pleasure-giving; that it is future rewards and punishments which make the equilibrium. Sidgwick, among recent writers, has also held that no complete identification of virtue and happiness can be found apart from religious considerations. (See Methods of Ethics, p. 505. For theological utilitarianism see Albee, History.)
[169] See his Utilitarianism, ch. iii.