On the Ethics of Naturalism

by W. R. Sorley

(b) Limits to complete conciliation of egoism and altruism:

The harmony of interests and the harmony of feelings required for the empirical reconciliation of egoism and altruism is a condition which needs only to be stated to show how far it is from being realised in present circumstances. The constant struggle involved in the course of evolution throws doubt even on its ultimate attainment. The rule has always been that the better-equipped organism asserts and maintains its supremacy only by vanquishing the organisms which are not so well equipped. |(α) continued existence of competition;| Conflict and competition have been constant factors in development. The present circumstances of the individual have been determined for him by the war of hostile interests between different communities, and between different members of the same community; and his mental inheritance has been largely formed by the emotions corresponding to this rivalry. Perhaps the necessity for conflict has diminished with the advance of evolution; but it is still sufficiently great to make competition one of the chief formative influences in industrial and political life. And the causes from which the struggle of interests arises are so constant—the multiplication of desires and of desiring individuals keeps so well in advance of the means of satisfying desires—that it is doubtful whether the course of evolution is fitted to bring about complete harmony between different individuals. It would almost seem that the "moving equilibrium" in human conduct, in which there is no clash of diverse interests, cannot be expected to be brought about much before the time when the physical factors of the universe have reached the stage in which evolution ends.

(β) different and conflicting degrees of altruism;

Besides, it does not do to speak as if the only alternative to egoism were a comprehensive altruism. Man is a member of a family, a tribe, a nation, the race. His altruism, therefore, may take the narrow form of family feeling, or it may extend to tribal feeling, or to patriotism, or even rise to devotion to humanity. And these do not merely supplement one another: they are often conflicting principles of conduct. Action for the sake of the family may frequently be most unsocial; the keen patriot ignores the rights of other peoples; the "citizen of the world" is too often a stranger to the national spirit. Further, when civilisation grows complex, the same man is a member of many intersecting societies—a church, a trade, a party organisation[122]—and has to balance the claims which each of these has upon him. The sublation of egoism would still leave to be determined the different shares which these various social wholes have in a man's sympathies, and their different claims upon his conduct.

(γ) the altruism of interest and the altruism of motive;

Any theory of society will show how the good of the individual is not merely a part of the good of the whole, but reacts in various ways upon the organism of which he is a member. But, in the case of any one individual, the results of acts done for his own good (or pleasure), and the results of those done for the good (or pleasure) of the whole, do not correspond with any exactness, and often widely diverge. If, then, the individual is consciously aiming at his own good (or pleasure), it is—if we look from the point of view of individualistic ethics—only an incidental and fortuitous result of the action when it promotes the common good. When we recognise the social factor in the individual, this judgment must be modified. The evolution-theory shows how he has become so constituted that much that pleases him individually, must of necessity benefit society at large. But there are obvious limits to the harmony. The pleasure or interest of the individual is often the reverse of advantageous to society. It may be the case that in seeking his own private ends, he is yet, to use the words of Adam Smith, "led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."[123] But, if so, the end is invisible as well as the hand that points to it. And the good of society can be said to be the natural and uniform consequence of the individual's action, only when he consciously makes it his end. In a word, the true altruism—or, as we might call it, using a word appropriated to another purpose—the true socialism is when the good of others or of society is pursued for its own sake; and this is to be distinguished from the false or imperfect altruism, in which the same outward result is aimed at, because it is seen to be the most prudent way of promoting one's own good. Thus Mr Spencer's elaborate argument[124] to show that conduct of purely egoistic tendency, equally with conduct of purely altruistic tendency, is insufficient and self-destructive, does not reach beyond the external results of action, and leaves it possible for both end and motive to be still egoistic. If "morality is internal,"[125] the discussion proves no ethical proposition at all. The egoism of external prudence may indeed be transcended by recognising that the pleasures and pains of others are sources of sympathetic feeling in ourselves. But a subjective or emotional egoism remains. And if the fact that we "receive pleasure from the pleasure of another man"[126] is our reason for seeking his pleasure, we shall cease to seek it when a means of greater pleasure offers. In human life as at present constituted, no secure principle of conduct can be based on the agreement of individual with social good; for, if they diverge, as they often do, there is no standard left for determining their competing claims.

(δ) altruistic feelings weak,

It will not do to divide all men, as Mr Stephen seems to do,[127] into two classes, typified by the reasonable and therefore sympathetic man who has struck a bargain with society to take "common stock of pains and pleasures," and the systematically selfish man who "must be an idiot." For most men belong to neither of those two classes: their bargain with society has not been fully completed, and can be withdrawn from temporarily when circumstances make withdrawal convenient, though this process cannot be carried on indefinitely without greatly weakening the sympathetic feelings. The majority of men are neither entirely sympathetic nor yet "systematically selfish": they are unsystematically sympathetic and unsystematically selfish. Such men have the sensibilities that give "leverage" to the moralist.[128] But it is futile to tell them to be more sympathetic, or entirely sympathetic. For sympathetic feelings cannot be produced at will: they can only come with that slow modification of the character brought about by conduct. Shall we then say that a man should in all cases of conduct prefer the pleasure of the whole or of others to his own pleasure? If a man were to do so, then perhaps, by consistent self-abnegation, altruism might become pleasant, and both the man himself and his descendants become more sympathetically constituted? This perfection of altruistic sympathies is looked forward to by Mr Spencer as characteristic of a subsequent—the final—stage of evolution. When that period comes, men will compete with one another for the few remaining opportunities of self-sacrifice.[129] At present, Mr Spencer argues, pure altruism is suicidal. The individual whose sympathetic nature is undeveloped may, however, go further, and ask what right we have to say that "the moral law" is "conformity to the conditions of social welfare,"[130] rather than to those of individual welfare? Evolution, it would seem, does not suffice to prove this proposition, which appears, on the contrary, to be a survival of the social or political way of looking at things inherited from the utilitarian theory. But the point to be proved is why I ought to adopt this standpoint when considering what the end of my action is to be. And this point stands in need of proof here as much as in utilitarianism, and seems almost equally destitute of it.

and may be restrained by reflection.

Feelings leading to altruistic conduct are undoubtedly possessed by the average man at his present stage of development. Yet the being who is able to reflect on the feelings possessed by him, and compare the characteristics of different emotional states, and the activities following from them, has already before him the possibility of transcending them. He is able to estimate their value in terms of simpler—or of other—feelings; and the man who rigorously does so by the test of personal pleasure and pain manifests the spirit of the egoistic hedonist—a spirit which the theory of empirical evolution does not seem able to exorcise.