FOOTNOTES:
[104] Aristotle illustrates by a man who throws his goods overboard in a storm at sea. He does not wish absolutely to lose his goods, but he prefers losing them to losing the ship or his own life: he wishes it under the circumstances and his act is so far voluntary.
[105] Of course, this is also true of a large part of human activity. But these are also the cases in which we do not ascribe moral value; or at least we do not except when we want to make the agent conscious of some reason why.
[106] While we have employed Spencer's example, it should be noted that incompatibility of ends is not the criterion of the distinctively moral situation which Spencer himself employs.
CHAPTER XI
PROBLEMS OF MORAL THEORY
We have identified in its framework and main outlines the sort of voluntary activity in which the problem of good and evil appears and in which the ideas of right and wrong are employed. This task, however, is only preliminary to theoretical analysis. For it throws no light upon just what we mean by good and bad; just what elements of complex voluntary behavior are termed right or wrong; or why they are so termed. It does not even indicate what must be discovered before such questions can be answered. It only sets forth the limits of the subject-matter within which such questions arise and in reference to which they must be answered. What are the distinctive problems which must be dealt with in the course of such a discussion?
Growth of Theory from Practical Problems.—Of one thing we may be sure. If inquiries are to have any substantial basis, if they are not to be wholly up in the air, the theorist must take his departure from the problems which men actually meet in their own conduct. He may define and refine these; he may divide and systematize; he may abstract the problems from their concrete contexts in individual lives; he may classify them when he has thus detached them; but if he gets away from them he is talking about something which his own brain has invented, not about moral realities. On the other hand, the perplexities and uncertainties of direct and personal behavior invite a more abstract and systematic impersonal treatment than that which they receive in the exigencies of their occurrence. The recognition of any end or authority going beyond what is embodied in existing customs, involves some appeal to thought, and moral theory makes this appeal more explicit and more complete. If a child asks why he should tell the truth, and is answered, "because you ought to and that is reason enough"; or, "because it will prove profitable for you to do so"; or, "because truth-telling is a condition of mutual communication and common aims," the answer implies a principle which requires only to be made explicit to be full-fledged theory. And when this principle is compared with those employed in other cases to see if they are mutually consistent; and if not, to find a still more fundamental reconciling principle, we have passed over the border into ethical system.
Types of Theoretical Problems.—The practical problems which a thoughtful and progressive individual must consider in his own conduct will, then, give the clue to the genuine problems of moral theory. The framework of one is an outline of the other. The man who does not satisfy himself with sheer conventional conformity to the customs, the ethos, of his class will find such problems as the following forced upon his attention:—(1) He must consider the meaning of habits which have been formed more or less unreflectively—by imitation, suggestion, and inculcation from others—and he must consider the meaning of those customs about him to which he is invited to conform till they have become personal habits. This problem of discovering the meaning of these habits and customs is the problem of stating what, after all, is really good, or worth while in conduct. (2) The one whose morality is of the reflective sort will be faced by the problem of moral advance, of progress beyond the level which has been reached by this more or less unreflective taking on of the habits and ideas of those about him, progress up to the level of his own reflective insight. Otherwise put, he has to face the problem of what is to be the place and rôle in his own conduct of ideals and principles generated not by custom but by deliberation and insight. (3) The individual must consider more consciously the relation between what is currently regarded as good by the social groups in which he is placed and in which he has to act, and that regarded as good by himself. The moment he ceases to accept conformity to custom as an adequate sanction of behavior, he is met by discrepancy between his personally conceived goods and those reigning in the customs about him. Now while this detachment makes possible the birth of higher and more ideal types of morality, and hence of systematic effort for social reform and advance; it also makes possible (as we have seen on the historical side, p. 189) a more generalized and deliberate selfishness; a less instinctive and more intentional pursuit of what the individual judges to be good for himself against what society exacts as good for itself. The same reflective attitude which generates the conscientious moral reformer may generate also a more deliberate and resolute anti-social egoism. In any case, the individual who has acquired the habit of moral reflection, is conscious of a new problem—the relation of public good to individual good. In short, the individual who is thoughtfully serious and who aims to bring his habit of reflection to bear on his conduct, will have occasion (1) to search for the elements of good and bad, of positive and negative, value in the situations that confront him; (2) to consider the methods and principles by which he shall reach conclusions, and (3) to consider the relations between himself, his own capacities and satisfactions, and the ends and demands of the social situations in which he is placed.