The Moral Economy

by Ralph Barton Perry

"But you acknowledge your fondness for the theatre."

"Yes, but that doesn't interest me now."

"Nevertheless you recognize the interest in {51} play-going as a real one, dormant to-day, temporarily eclipsed by another interest, but certain to revive to-morrow?"

"I do."

"And you admit that, apart from the chance of your death in the meantime, a chance so small as to be negligible, an interest to-morrow is as real as an interest to-day?"

"Yes."

"Now, recognizing these two interests, and keeping them firmly in view, observe the consequences of your action if you persist in eating the apple, and pronounce judgment upon it."

"It would seem to be both good and bad; good in its conduciveness to the satisfaction of my present appetite, bad in its preventing my enjoyment of the play."

In your last reply you have fairly stated the problem. You are not permitted to escape the dilemma by simply neglecting the facts, for this would be contrary to the original agreement binding you to be and remain open-minded. And you are now as concerned as I to solve the problem by defining a reorganization of the situation that would permit of an action unequivocally good, that is altogether conducive to the fulfilment of interest.

To understand what would constitute a solution of this moral problem it is important to observe, {52} in the first place, that an action wholly conducive to both interests would take precedence of an action which fulfilled the one but sacrificed the other. Were it possible for you to eat the apple now and go to the play to-morrow, your rational course would be to allow your present impulse free play. You would thus be alive to the total situation; your action would in reality be regulated by both interests, or rather by a larger interest embracing and providing for both. An action thus controlled would have a more adequate justification than an action conceived with reference to the one interest exclusively, and merely happening to be favorable to the other interest also. Or suppose that, by substituting a different species of apple for the one first selected, you could avoid disagreeable consequences, and without loss of immediate gratification. In this case you would have corrected your original action and adopted a course that proved itself better, because conducive to the fulfilment of to-morrow's interest as well as to-day's.