Theoretical Ethics

by M. Valentine

The connection between theoretical and practical ethics is very close and vital. Theory and practice always affect each other. They cannot be held wholly apart. They act and react on each other, in ceaseless influences. It is so in every department of thought and life. Theoretical error in physical science, in art, in trade, in political economy, can hardly fail to appear in faulty or misdirected practice. Every failure to grasp first principles correctly and firmly is sure to mean failure also to grasp and maintain the true order and beauty of right living. False views as to the reality and grounds of moral obligation weaken, vitiate and corrupt life. They become, often, the fountain of far-flowing streams of evil and blight. At best they lack power for the true and right life. A correct theory of ethical truth is, therefore, demanded by all the high interests in the moral life of man and the order of the world.

It is apparent, however, that it is only the theoretical part that constitutes the science of ethics. It alone settles the systematic view of it, revealing its underlying pre-suppositions and principles, exhibiting its reasons and determining its laws. Practical ethics, as simply pointing out how these bear upon men's temper and conduct in actual life, is apart from the scientific investigation. Though this has usually constituted a large portion of formal treatises on the subject, we, for the reason thus given, omit it from this discussion.

4. A few of the relations of ethical science are properly called to mind here. Its place will thus be more clearly seen. It sustains very close relations to three other great branches of study.

Relation to Psychology.

(1) To psychology. It is organically related to this. In that part of its work which determines the reality and nature of moral obligation from the constitution and action of the human mind, moral science joins with psychology in the investigation of man's mental capacities and powers. Ever since the days of Aristotle ethics has been seen to have real psychological basis and pre-suppositions.[5] Yet, as a result of the later general subsuming of ethics under religious and theological precepts, this basis received but little distinct investigation till the time of Shaftesbury who, though failing to give adequate or correct account of it, brought it prominently forward. Mental science is essentially conditional for moral science. The behests of duty are provided for and sanctioned in human nature. The moral discriminations and convictions emerge as psychical phenomena. "To understand what man ought to do, it is necessary to know what he is." In the very structure and adjustment of his powers, it becomes apparent that he has been made for duty and organized under obligations.

But while psychology and ethics both study the powers and functions of the soul, they do so with different aims. The one has no aim beyond a knowledge of the phenomena and laws of the mind as mind. The other studies it with a view to the light which this knowledge sheds on the problems of virtue and duty. There are, indeed, some questions in ethics that transcend the province of psychology, and belong to the further realm of metaphysics—as, for instance, the validity and ground of the distinction between right and wrong—yet, so far as it is the science of conscience or of man's moral nature, it is thoroughly psychological. And well would it have been for moral science if, instead of speculatively and arbitrarily theorizing on the subject, it had more critically, fully, and exactly searched out the real facts in actual psychology and moved forward always toward the conclusions necessitated by these fundamental and abiding realities.

Relation to Natural Theology.

(2) To Natural Theology. As Natural Theology seeks to determine the existence, character and will of God as Creator and Moral Governor of the world, and the consequent relations and responsibilities of men, it covers, to some extent, the same ground as a system of ethics constructed simply upon the basis of reason and the data found in man's nature and place. Both, if properly drawn out, bring to view the reality of "a power that makes for righteousness"[6] in the natural constitution of the world, and exhibit the laws of obligation that bind men under the action of conscience. Both treat of the fact and authentications of human duty. A science of ethics, as well as a theology, may be constructed, apart from supernatural revelation, from the data of reason and nature alone. The possibility of this is implied in Rom. 2:14, 15. This would be a system of natural ethics. There is still, however, a large difference—though theology and ethics be kept apart from the teachings of special revelation. For Natural Theology keeps more prominently and controllingly in view the being and character of God, and aims more distinctly to produce the religious sentiments, while authenticating the reality and action of the moral law. Ethics, on the other hand, puts the facts of human nature and life into the front and includes the religious element only as a consequential, though necessary, inclusion.

Relation to Christian Theology.

(3) To Christian Theology, or revealed religion. As this is the fullest disclosure of the duty of man, in all his relations, to God, to his fellow-men, and to his own end, it is not surprising that for so many centuries, the treatment of morals was made simply a part of general theology, and merely distinguished as Moral Theology. In the modern separation of ethics from theology and treatment of it as a science, it is not meant to deny the close affinity between the two investigations or the rich illumination that duty receives from supernatural revelation, but only to trace out more distinctly and fully, in independent and scientific form, the deep and immovable foundations of the principles of duty in the very constitution of man and the world. This exhibition of the natural basis of ethical law and obligation becomes an independent and generic enforcement of the principles of righteousness. It gives a philosophic vindication of one of the first assumptions of Christianity—the supremacy of the law of rectitude for human life. And Christianity is vindicated and exalted when it comes recognizing and confirming all the principles and duties discoverable in our moral nature, and adding a supernatural disclosure of the way in which righteousness may be established in our lives, and men may attain their right character and destiny.