On the Ethics of Naturalism

by W. R. Sorley

The conception of an end is forced upon us in considering life, because then it is necessary to take account of the being as organised, and therefore as a whole. In the investigation of nature, on the other hand, things may be apprehended without relation to the conception of the whole; and teleology, therefore, seems to be unnecessary. The notion of purpose, it is often said, is essential to biology, but out of place in physical science. But when we look on the world as a whole, the notion of end or purpose is introduced, and the functions of its various parts conceived from a new point of view. And the end of an organism can only be partially understood, when that organism is conceived as a whole apart from its environment. It is only a partial manifestation or example of the more perfect reality in which things are to be regarded as not merely conditioned and conditioning, but as revelations of purpose. But, although the notion of purpose cannot be dispensed with in considering organic nature, the teleological notions we form of living things are imperfect and "abstract." Thus the organism is often, more or less explicitly, judged by its utility for some human purpose. In these cases the end is clearly an external and dependent one. And, when the adaptation of its parts is spoken of in relation to its type or perfect form, a conception is involved over and above what can be inferred from the nature of the organism in itself. The notion of the end depends upon a rational ideal, which passes beyond the causal interrelation of parts to the conception of the organism as a whole, whose function is necessarily related to its environment.

and life directly known only as self-conscious.

Our knowledge of the ends of the lower animals is really much more imperfect than our knowledge of the human end. For the only life we really know is self-conscious life, and that we are unable to attribute to them. We know their life only by conjecture, our knowledge of it being but an abstraction from our own consciousness. The ethical, as Trendelenburg puts it,[279] is the higher stage of the process, a lower stage of which is the organic. The purpose, which is conceived as blind or unconscious in nature, becomes conscious and voluntary in man. But our notion of the former is simply an abstraction from the free and conscious purpose which characterises our own activity. The conception of life is only known to us as—is only—an element or moment in our own self-consciousness. And life which is not self-conscious can only be judged in relation to the self-consciousness which contains in itself the explanation both of life and of nature. The germ of truth in the old mechanical teleology may perhaps be seen in this way. For it had right on its side in so far as it referred everything to the self-consciousness manifested in man; it was mistaken only in so far as it made things relative to his needs and desires. The teleological anthropomorphism which judges all things according to their correspondence with human purposes, must be transcended, equally with the speculative anthropomorphism which frames the unseen world in the likeness of the phenomena of our present experience. But to attempt to escape from what is sometimes called anthropomorphism—the reference of the nature and purpose of things to self-consciousness, as expressive of the ultimate reality—is to attempt to escape from thought itself, and makes one's thinking from the beginning void and contradictory.

4. Reference to self-consciousness implied in evolution,

Now this reference to self has been omitted in our consideration of empirical evolution. We have taken the purely objective ground of science, and we have admitted what science has told us of how all sorts of things came to be,—how man appeared on the earth, gradually adapted himself to his surroundings and modified them—how sentiments expanded, customs grew, and one institution developed out of another. But science shows us all this only as an external process of events in space and time—a process in which the preceding determines each succeeding state, and all parts are united together. It does not show us the process from the inside. And, in the end, it can do no more than point towards, without reaching, the comprehensive idea of a whole, by reference to which idea all the members of the whole are determined, in such a way that it is insufficient to look upon one as causing another, and with the others making up the aggregate; since each member only exists for the sake of the whole, and the idea of the whole precedes the parts which constitute it.[280] The teleological conception thus necessarily leads us beyond the ordinary categories of science, by which all things are conceived as connected causally in space and time. But the scientific theories that we have been discussing do not recognise this altered point of view; and, without giving any justification for the change of standpoint, lay down the moral law that we ought to aim at the realisation of something which can only be described as a mental conception or idea. Here a double change in point of view is involved. We are no longer considering a process going on outside us, in which the reference to self may be fairly ignored, but we put ourselves in relation to this external order: and we do so, not merely as cognitive, but as active—as the potential source of actions which we say "ought" to be performed by us.

(a) made clear in the attempt to trace the genesis of self-consciousness.

The assumption involved in the former change is that made by comparative or evolutionist psychology, when it attempts to play the part of a theory of knowledge. The development of impressions and ideas is made to pass upwards to more complicated stages, till it reaches the point at which the individual, conceived as determined by external forces and reacting upon them, becomes conscious of itself as a subject of knowledge and source of action. This transition from the category of causality to self-consciousness is, in some systems—that of Mr Spencer, for example—either concealed or held to with no firm grasp. Throughout his objective treatment of psychology, it would seem that Mr Spencer is evolving mind or self-consciousness out of the process in which simple relations of matter and motion form the lowest stage, and reflex action is that which approaches most nearly to having mental characteristics. And, from this objective point of view, he speaks of his philosophy as an interpretation of "the detailed phenomena of life, mind, and society, in terms of matter, motion, and force."[281] But when he discusses the subjective side, he admits that it is entirely unique and sui generis,[282] and adopts what is known as the "two aspects" theory—the theory that mind cannot be accounted for as derived from matter, any more than matter can be accounted for as derived from mind, but that they are both phases of one ultimate and unknown reality.[283] This admission involves a practical acknowledgment that it is impossible to arrive at consciousness or at subjectivity by a process of natural development. We must, it affirms, postulate two aspects or phases of existence, or two lines of development, connected probably in their ultimate reality, but, as known to us, distinct from one another, and without mutual influence.

Reference to self-consciousness,

The doctrine that a reference to self-consciousness is implied in experience, may perhaps be made clearer by considering a criticism to which it has recently been subjected by an able psychological writer. Professor W. James writes as follows:—

"The doctrine of the post-Kantians, that all knowledge is also self-knowledge, seems to flow from this confusion [between the psychologist's standpoint and the standpoint of the feeling upon which he is supposed to be making his report]. Empirically, of course, an awareness of self accompanies most of our thinking. But that it should be needed to make that thinking 'objective' is quite another matter. 'Green-after-red-and-other-than-it' is an absolutely complete object of thought, ideally considered, and needs no added element. The fallacy seems to arise from some such reflection as this, that since the feeling is what it feels itself to be, so it must feel itself to be what it is—namely, related to each of its objects. That the last is covers much more ground than the first, the philosopher here does not notice. The first is signifies only the feeling's inward quality; the last is covers all possible facts about the feeling,—relational facts, which can only be known from outside points of view, like that of the philosopher himself."[284]