Practical Ethics

by William De Witt Hyde

Regard for others, merely as individuals, does not satisfy the deepest yearnings of our social nature. The family is so much more to us than the closest of ties which we can form on lines of business, charity, or even friendship; because in place of an aggregate of individuals, each with his separate interests, the family presents a life in which each member shares in a good which is common to all.

The state makes possible a common good on a much wider scale. Still, on a strict construction of its functions, the state merely insures the outward form of this wider, common life. The state declares what man shall not do, rather than what man shall do, in his relations to his fellow-men. To prevent the violation of mutual rights rather than to secure the performance of mutual duties, is the fundamental function of the state. Of course these two sides cannot be kept entirely apart. There is a strong tendency at the present time to enlarge the province of the state, and to intrust it with the enforcement of positive duties which man owes to his fellow-men, and which class owes to class. Whether this tendency is good or bad, whether it is desirable to enforce social duties, or to trust them to the unfettered social conscience of mankind, is a theoretical question which, for our practical purposes, we need not here discuss.

No man liveth unto himself. No man ought to be satisfied with a good which is peculiar to himself, from which mankind as a whole are excluded. No man can be so satisfied. Ignorance, prejudice, selfishness, pride, custom, blind men to this common good, and prevent them from making the efforts and sacrifices necessary to realize it. But the man who could deliberately prefer to see the world in which he lives going to destruction would be a monster rather than a man.

This common life of humanity in which each individual partakes is society. Society is the larger self of each individual. Its interests and ours are fundamentally one and the same.—If the society in which we live is elevated and pure and noble we share its nobleness and are elevated by it. If society is low, corrupt, and degraded, we share its corruption, and its baseness drags us down. So vital and intimate is this bond between society and ourselves that it is impossible when dealing with moral matters to keep them apart. To be a better man, without at the same time being a better neighbor, citizen, workman, soldier, scholar, or business man, is a contradiction in terms. For life consists in these social relations to our fellows. And the better we are, the better these social duties will be fulfilled.

Society includes all the objects hitherto considered. Society is the organic life of man, in which the particular objects and relations of our individual lives are elements and members. Hence in this chapter, and throughout the remainder of the book, we shall not be concerned with new materials, but with the materials with which we are already familiar, viewed in their broader and more comprehensive relationships.

THE DUTY.

In each act we should think not merely "How will this act affect me?" but "How will this act affect all parties concerned, and society as a whole?"—The interests of all men are my own, by virtue of that common society of which they and I are equal members. What is good for others is good for me, because, in that broader view of my own nature which society embodies, my good cannot be complete unless, to the extent of my ability, their good is included in my own. Hence we have the maxims laid down by Kant: "Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature." "So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of another, in every case as an end, never as a means only." Or as Professor Royce puts the same thought; "Act as a being would act who included thy will and thy neighbor's will in the unity of one life, and who had therefore to suffer the consequences for the aims of both that will follow from the act of either." "In so far as in thee lies, act as if thou wert at once thy neighbor and thyself. Treat these two lives as one."

The realization of the good of all in and through the act of each is the social ideal.—In everyday matters this can be brought about by simply taking account of all the interests of others which will be affected by our act. In the relations between employer and employee, for instance, profit sharing is the most practical form of realizing this community of interest. Such action involves a co-operation of interests as the motives of the individual act.

The larger social ends, such as education, philanthropy, reform, public improvements, require the co-operation of many individuals in the same enterprise. The readiness to contribute a fair share of our time, money, and influence to these larger public interests, which no individual can undertake alone, is an important part of our social duty. Every beneficent cause, every effort to rouse public sentiment against a wrong, or to make it effective in the enforcement of a right; every endeavor to unite men in social intercourse; every plan to extend the opportunities for education; every measure for the relief of the deserving poor, and the protection of homeless children; every wise movement for the prevention of vice, crime, and intemperance, is entitled to receive from each one of us the same intelligent attention, the same keenness of interest, the same energy of devotion, the same sacrifice of inclination and convenience, the same resoluteness and courage of action that we give to our private affairs.

Co-operation, then, is of two kinds, inward and outward: co-operation between the interests of others and of ourselves in the motive to our individual action; and co-operation of our action with the action of others to accomplish objects too vast for private undertaking.—Both forms of co-operation are in principle the same; they strengthen and support each other. The man who is in the habit of considering the interests of others in his individual acts will be more ready to unite with others in the promotion of public beneficence. And on the other hand the man who is accustomed to act with others in large public movements will be more inclined to act for others in his personal affairs. The reformer and philanthropist is simply the man of private generosity and good-will acting out his nature on a larger stage.