The Approach to Philosophy

by Ralph Barton Perry

§ [211]. But there is at least one further starting-point, the one adopted by the most subtle and elaborate of all reconstructive philosophies. Logical necessities are as evidently real as bodies or selves. It is possible to define general types of inference, as well as compact and internally necessary systems such as those of mathematics. There is a perfectly distinguishable strain of pure rationality in the universe. Whether or not it be possible to conceive a pure rationality as self-subsistent, inasmuch as there are degrees it is at any rate possible to conceive of a maximum of rationality. But similarly there are degrees of moral goodness. It is possible to define with more or less exactness a morally perfect person, or an ideal moral community. Here again it may be impossible that pure and unalloyed goodness should constitute a universe of itself. But that a maximum of goodness, with all of the accessories which it might involve, should be thus self-subsistent, is quite conceivable. It is thus possible to define an absolute and perfect order, in which logical necessity, the interest of thought, or moral goodness, the interest of will, or both together, should be realized to the maximum. Absolutism conceives reality under the form of this ideal, and attempts to reconstruct experience accordingly. But is the prospect of success any better than in the cases of materialism and subjectivism? It is evident that the ideal of logical necessity is due to the fact that certain parts of knowledge approach it more closely than others. Thus mechanics contains more that is arbitrary than mathematics, and mathematics more than logic. Similarly, the theory of the evolution of the planetary system, in that it requires the assumption of particular distances and particular masses for the parts of the primeval nebula, is more arbitrary than rational dynamics. It is impossible, then, in view of the parts of knowledge which belong to the lower end of the scale of rationality, to regard reality as a whole as the maximum of rationality; for either a purely dynamical, a purely mathematical, or a purely logical, realm would be more rational. The similar disproof of the moral perfection of reality is so unmistakable as to require no elucidation. It is evident that even where natural necessities are not antagonistic to moral proprieties, they are at any rate indifferent to them.

Error and Evil Cannot be Reduced to the Ideal.

§ [212]. But thus far no reference has been made to error and to evil. These are the terms which the ideals of rationality and goodness must repudiate if they are to retain their meaning. Nevertheless experience contains them and psychology describes them. We have already followed the efforts which absolute idealism has made to show that logical perfection requires error, and that moral perfection requires evil. Is it conceivable that such efforts should be successful? Suppose a higher logic to make the principle of contradiction the very bond of rationality. What was formerly error is now indispensable to truth. But what of the new error—the unbalanced and mistaken thesis, the unresolved antithesis, the scattered and disconnected terms of thought? These fall outside the new truth as surely as the old error fell outside the old truth. And the case of moral goodness is precisely parallel. The higher goodness may be so defined as to require failure and sin. Thus it may be maintained that there can be no true success without struggle, and no true spiritual exaltation except through repentance. But what of failure unredeemed, sin unrepented, evil uncompensated and unresolved? Nothing has been gained after all but a new definition of goodness—and a new definition of evil. And this is an ethical, not a metaphysical question. The problem of evil, like the problem of error, is as far from solution as ever. Indeed, the very urgency of these problems is due to metaphysical absolutism. For this philosophy defines the universe as a perfect unity. Measured by the standard of such an ideal universe, the parts of finite experience take on a fragmentary and baffling character which they would not otherwise possess. The absolute perfection must by definition both determine and exclude the imperfect. Thus absolutism bankrupts the universe by holding it accountable for what it can never pay.

Collective Character of the Universe as a Whole.

§ [213]. If the attempt to construct experience in the special terms of some part of experience be abandoned, how is reality to be defined? It is evident that in that case there can be no definition of reality as such. It must be regarded as a collection of all elements, relations, principles, systems, that compose it. All truths will be true of it, and it will be the subject of all truths. Reality is at least physical, psychical, moral, and rational. That which is physical is not necessarily moral or psychical, but may be either or both of these. Thus it is a commonplace of experience that what has bulk and weight may or may not be good, and may or may not be known. Similarly, that which is psychical may or may not be physical, moral, or rational; and that which is moral or rational may or may not be physical and psychical. There is, then, an indeterminism in the universe, a mere coincidence of principles, in that it contains physical, psychical, moral, logical orders, without being in all respects either a physical, a psychical, a moral, or a logical necessity.[420:13] Reality or experience itself is neutral in the sense of being exclusively predetermined by no one of the several systems it contains. But the different systems of experience retain their specific and proper natures, without the compromise which is involved in all attempts to extend some one until it shall embrace them all. If such a universe seems inconceivably desultory and chaotic, one may always remind one's self by directly consulting experience that it is not only found immediately and unreflectively, but returned to and lived in after every theoretical excursion.

Moral Implications of such a Pluralistic Philosophy. Purity of the Good.

§ [214]. But what implications for life would be contained in such a philosophy? Even if it be theoretically clarifying, through being hospitable to all differences and adequate to the multifarious demands of experience, is it not on that very account morally dreary and stultifying? Is not its refusal to establish the universe upon moral foundations destructive both of the validity of goodness, and of the incentive to its attainment? Certainly not—if the validity of goodness be determined by criteria of worth, and if the incentive to goodness be the possibility of making that which merely exists, or is necessary, also good.

This philosophy does not, it is true, define the good, but it makes ethics autonomous, thus distinguishing the good which it defines, and saving it from compromise with matter-of-fact, and logical or mechanical necessity. The criticism of life is founded upon an independent basis, and affords justification, of a selective and exclusive moral idealism. Just because it is not required that the good shall be held accountable for whatever is real, the ideal can be kept pure and intrinsically worthy. The analogy of logic is most illuminating. If it be insisted that whatever exists is logically necessary, logical necessity must be made to embrace that from which it is distinguished by definition, such as contradiction, mere empirical existence, and error. The consequence is a logical chaos which has in truth forfeited the name of logic. Similarly a goodness defined to make possible the deduction from it of moral evil or moral indifference loses the very distinguishing properties of goodness. The consequence is an ethical neutrality which invalidates the moral will. A metaphysical neutrality, on the other hand, although denying that reality as such is predestined to morality—and thus affording no possibility of an ethical absolutism—becomes the true ground for an ethical purism.

The Incentive to Goodness.

§ [215]. But, secondly, there can be no lack of incentive to goodness in a universe which, though not all-good, is in no respect incapable of becoming good. That which is mechanically or logically necessary, and that which is psychically present, may be good. And what can the realization of goodness mean if not that what is natural and necessary, actual and real, shall be also good. The world is not good, will not be good, merely through being what it is, but is or shall be made good through the accession of goodness. It is this belief that the real is not necessarily, but may be, good; that the ideal is not necessarily, but may be, realized; which has inspired every faith in action. Philosophically it is only a question of permitting such faith to be sincere, or condemning it as shallow. If the world be made good through good-will, then the faith of moral action is rational; but if the world be good because whatever is must be good, then moral action is a tread-mill, and its attendant and animating faith only self-deception. Moral endeavor is the elevation of physical and psychical existence to the level of goodness.