The sovereign self versus social duty: The perennial tension in ethical thought

“ Morality has its root in the Common Nature of Man; a scheme of Morality must conform to the Common Sense of mankind, in so far as that is consistent with itself. Now, this Common Sense of Mankind has in every age led to two seemingly opposite schemes of Morality, the one making Virtue, and the other making Pleasure, the rule of action. On the one side, men urge the claims of Rectitude, Duty, Conscience, the Moral Faculty; on the other, they declare Utility, Expediency, Interest, Enjoyment, to be the proper guides. ”

“ These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of everyone of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs. ”

“ All virtues are really social; or, more properly, the distinction between social and self-regarding virtues is a false one. Every virtue is self-regarding in the sense that it is a disposition, or habit of will, directed to an end which the man presents to himself as his good; every virtue is social in the sense that unless the good to which the will is directed is one in which the well-being of society in some form or other is involved, the will is not virtuous at all. ”

“ It is always imposed from outside. The authority of parents, the authority of the law of the land, and the authority of God are all alike in this, that the seat of the authority is external to the agent himself. Now a duty is a moral duty only when it is self-imposed. A duty is my duty only when I recognise that, whatever external sanctions it may possess, it is laid upon me by myself. My conscience acknowledges that it is a duty for me, and my will imposes it upon me as a line of action that ought to be carried out. The duty is an obligation laid upon the self by the self. ”

“ Morality, he concludes, is the relation of actions to the Autonomy of the Will, i.e., to possible universal legislation through its maxims. Actions that can co-exist with this autonomy are allowed; all others are not. A will, whose maxims necessarily accord with the laws of Autonomy, is holy, or absolutely good; the dependence of a will not thus absolutely good is Obligation. The objective necessity of an action from obligation is Duty. Subjection to law is not the only element in duty; the fact of the law being self-imposed gives Dignity. ”

“ It is the morality already existing ready to hand in laws, institutions, social usages, moral opinions and feelings. This is the element in which the young are brought up. It has given moral content to themselves, and it is the only source of such content. It is not wrong, it is a duty, to take the best that there is, and to live up to the best. It is not wrong, it is a duty, standing on the basis of the existing, and in harmony with its general spirit, to try and make not only oneself but also the world better, or rather, and in preference, one’s own world better. ”

“ By language, by training, by simply living with others, each of us absorbs into his system the social atmosphere that surrounds us. In particular, in the matter of rights and duties which is cardinal for Liberal theory, the relation of the individual to the community is everything. His rights and his duties are alike defined by the common good. ”

“ But if the individual and others are equally members of one society, if the performance by each man of his own function constitutes a good common to all, it is inevitable that social authorities should be an influence in constituting and teaching duties. The community, in imposing its own needs and demands upon the individual, is simply arousing him to a knowledge of his relationships in life, to a knowledge of the moral environment in which he lives, and of the acts which he must perform if he is to realize his individuality. ”

“ But whilst he gives himself up unreservedly to that which draws him, because that is his own, he is to refuse himself to that which draws him not, whatsoever fame and authority may attend it, because it is not his own. Entire self-reliance belongs to the intellect. One soul is a counterpoise of all souls, as a capillary column of water is a balance for the sea. It must treat things and books and sovereign genius as itself also a sovereign. ”

“ There are individuals with rare mental gifts, and delicate spiritual discernment who fail utterly in life because they lack the one element,--self-reliance. This would unite all their energies, and focus them into strength and power.
The man who is not self-reliant is weak, hesitating and doubting in all he does. He fears to take a decisive step, because he dreads failure, because he is waiting for some one to advise him or because he dare not act in accordance with his own best judgment. In his cowardice and his conceit he sees all his non-success due to others. ”

“ Thus with true worth and merit: it is uniformly modest in deportment. It is only the shallow-pated who strive to attract attention by pretentious claims. The ocean depths are mute; it is only along shallow shores that the roar of the breakers is heard.
It is not difficult to draw the line between self-reliance and modesty on the one hand, and self-esteem and arrogant pretensions on the other. True self-reliance does not call on all men to witness its exploits. It displays itself in action. ”

“ In Part One of this book we have attempted to show the benefits which follow upon self-knowledge as to vocation. But this is only one phase, after all, of your life and activity. Obedience to the injunction, "know thyself," will help, also, to solve many of the hard problems you meet in education, social life, religion, morality, and family relations. The man who, through character analysis, has a scientific knowledge of himself, has therein a valuable guide to self-development and self-improvement. He knows which qualities to cultivate and which to restrain. ”

“ There is no information which people are so ready to give as about books, indeed when you ask them they feel flattered. When Franklin wished to make friends with a man that he suspected of hostile sentiments he borrowed a book of him and returned it promptly.
To find out what the best books are is no difficult matter, but to find out what are the best books for us requires a self-knowledge that takes life-long study. In reading we must feel our way, we cannot tell what is best for us all at once. We need to get acquainted with our own minds, to learn what our powers and tastes are. ”

“ If every book you read suggests more problems, gives you worth-while questions and topics to think about in spare moments, enriches your in­tel­lec­tual life and stimulates your thought, it is performing its proper function. But if you read solely to answer problems you cannot answer for yourself, if every time you are puzzled about anything you run to a book to have it explained, and accept without question the explanation there given; in short, if you use your reading to save yourself from thinking, you had better stop reading altogether. Smoking is a far less harmful form of dissipation. ”

“ So with reading. When we peruse a book in the usual casual way we do not master it. And when we read a book on the same subject immediately after it, the different viewpoint is liable to cause bewilderment and make us worse off than before the second book was started. We do not like to devote a lot of time to one book, but would rather run through several books in the same time, believing that we thereby gain more ideas. We are just as mistaken as a beginner in swimming who would attempt to learn several strokes before having mastered one well enough to keep afloat. ”

“ But there is one practice about which there can be no controversy—that of making sure you thoroughly understand every idea of an author. While most people will not verbally contradict this advice, their actual practice may be a continual contradiction of it. They will be in such haste to finish a book that they will not stop to make sure they really understand the more difficult or obscure passages. Just what they hope to gain it is difficult to say. If they think it is wasting time to try to understand every idea, it is surely a greater waste of time to read an idea without understanding it. ”

“ Society is the school of wisdom, and solitude the temple of virtue. In the one we learn the art of living with comfort among our fellow creatures, and in the other, of living with quietude by ourselves. A total retreat from the world would place us aside from that part which Providence chiefly intended us to act; but without occasional retreat it is certain that we must act that part very ill. There will be neither consistency in the conduct, nor dignity in the character, of one who sets apart no share of his time for meditation and reflection. ”

“ Never value as an advantage to yourself what will force you one day to break your word, to abandon self-respect, to hate, suspect, execrate another, to act a part, to covet anything that calls for walls or coverings to conceal it. A man who puts first his own mind and divinity, and the holy rites of its excellence, makes no scene, utters no groans, will need neither the refuge of solitude nor the crowded streets. ”

“ A long experience gives a man poise, balance, and steadiness; he has seen many things come and go, and he is neither paralysed by depression when society goes wrong, nor irrationally elated when it goes right. He is perfectly aware that his party is only a means to an end, and not a piece of indestructible and infallible machinery; that the creed he accepts has passed through many changes of interpretation, and will pass through more; that the social order for which he contends, if secured, will be only another stage in the unbroken development of the organised life of men in the world. ”

“ This formula shows us that the act of association comprises a mutual undertaking between the public and the individuals, and that each individual, in making a contract, as we may say, with himself, is bound in a double capacity; as a member of the Sovereign he is bound to the individuals, and as a member of the State to the Sovereign. But the maxim of civil right, that no one is bound by undertakings made to himself, does not apply in this case; for there is a great difference between incurring an obligation to yourself and incurring one to a whole of which you form a part. ”

“ Each man alienates, I admit, by the social compact, only such part of his powers, goods and liberty as it is important for the community to control; but it must also be granted that the Sovereign is sole judge of what is important.
Every service a citizen can render the State he ought to render as soon as the Sovereign demands it; but the Sovereign, for its part, cannot impose upon its subjects any fetters that are useless to the community, nor can it even wish to do so; for no more by the law of reason than by the law of nature can anything occur without a cause. ”

“ They may be proofs of any amount of folly, or want of personal dignity and self-respect; but they are only a subject of moral reprobation when they involve a breach of duty to others, for whose sake the individual is bound to have care for himself. What are called duties to ourselves are not socially obligatory, unless circumstances render them at the same time duties to others. The term duty to oneself, when it means anything more than prudence, means self-respect or self-development ”

“ I consider morality merely as it respects society; for if we superadd the obligations of a divine command, we blend it with religion; an article in which Christians have an infinit advantage over savages.
Considering moral duties as founded solely on the constitution of society, and as having for their sole end the happiness of social beings, many of them will vary in their nature and extent, according to the particular state and circumstances of any society. ”

“ The third and last duty of the sovereign or commonwealth, is that of erecting and maintaining those public institutions and those public works, which though they may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society, are, however, of such a nature, that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual, or small number of individuals ”

“ Working people shall organize themselves on a self-management basis in organizations of associated labour, local communities, self-managing communities of interest and other self-managing organizations and communities, and shall specify which common interests, rights and duties they shall realize in them. The common interests and functions of power and management of other social affairs which the working people, nations and nationalities will realize in the socio-political communities, shall be spelled out by the constitution and statute. ”

“ In attaining self-government, the working people in the social-political communities shall decide on the course of economic and social development, on the distribution of the social product, and on other matters of common concern.
Citizens and representatives of organizations concerned and of the social community may participate in the management of a working organization in affairs of special concern to the social community. ”

“ THE SOCIAL-POLITICAL COMMUNITIES ARTICLE 96. Directly and through their organs of social self-government in the commune, being the basic social-political community, the citizens shall Provide the material and other conditions necessary for the work and development of productive forces; guide and coordinate economic development and the development of the social services; determine and distribute the means for common communal requirements; create the conditions required to satisfy the material, social, cultural and other common needs of the citizens ”

“ In other words, obligation or duty is simply the aspect which the good or the moral end assumes, as the individual conceives of it. From the very fact [153] that the end is the good, and yet is not realized by the individual, it presents itself to him as that which should be realized—as the ideal of action. It requires no further argument to show that obligation is at once self-imposed, and social in its content. It is self-imposed because it flows from the good, from the idea of the full activity of the individual's own will. ”

“ Hitherto we have considered things, relations, persons, and institutions outside ourselves as the objects which together constitute our environment.
The self is not a new object, but rather the bond which binds together into unity all the experiences of life. It is their relation to this conscious self which gives to all objects their moral worth. Every act upon an object reacts upon ourselves. The virtues and vices, the rewards and penalties that we have been studying are the various reactions of conduct upon ourselves. ”

“ It does not guarantee the rightness of goodness of an act; there is no excuse for thinking of evil action as individualistic and right action as social. Deliberate unscrupulous pursuit of self-interest is as much conditioned upon social opportunities, training and assistance as is the course of action prompted by a beaming benevolence. ”

“ Self-sacrifice is not in any way the moral end or the last word. Life is lost that it may be found. The smaller local life of the private self is given up in order that the richer and fuller life of the social or active self may be realized. But none the less the self-sacrifice at the time that it is made is genuine and real. While it is involved in the very nature of morality that moral conduct shall bring greater activity, larger life, the motive of the agent in self-sacrifice is not to give up the lesser satisfaction for the sake of getting a greater. ”

“ All our legislation concerning transmissions, entailments, adoptions, and, if I may venture to use such a word, coadjutoreries, requires remodelling.
Liberty favors emulation, instead of destroying it. In social equality, emulation consists in accomplishing under like conditions; it is its own reward. No one suffers by the victory.
Liberty applauds self-sacrifice, and honors it with its votes, but it can dispense with it. Justice alone suffices to maintain the social equilibrium. Self-sacrifice is an act of supererogation. Happy, however, the man who can say, “I sacrifice myself.” ”

“ Another formula indicates more clearly the relation of duty to a society of moral agents responsible to one another: "Act so that you treat humanity, in your person and in the person of every one else, always as an end as well as a means, never merely as a means." ”

“ This isolation of individuals in the human race, a species in which each member is more utterly dependent upon his fellows than in any other, is one of the most remarkable of paradoxes. Indeed, self-reliance is an eminent social virtue, but self-limitation is a pitiful individual weakness. ”

“ Duty to self is the [Pg 319] first of duties: free society makes it the only duty. Man is not naturally selfish or bad, for he is naturally social. Free society dissociates him, and makes him bad and selfish from necessity. ”

“ That self-command, in the same manner, by which we restrain our present appetites, in order to gratify them more fully upon another occasion, is approved of, as much under the aspect of propriety, as under that of utility. When we act in this manner, the sentiments which influence our conduct seem exactly to coincide with those of the spectator. The spectator does not feel the felicitations of our present appetites. ”

“ Happy homes will dot the country from shore to shore, in which both the man and the woman will do their best to lift the world toward God.
“Self-knowledge, self-reverence, and self-control; these three alone lead life to a sovereign power,” and these are fast becoming essential to any ideal of womanly character which [523] the modern age will recognize as the product of its institutions. Of self-knowledge, these talks have said much. Self-reverence I would fain help you to develop in your character as a woman. ”

“ The answer is, We cannot obtain our own good without having regard to others, and undergoing the restraints prescribed by morality. There is seldom any inconsistency between our duty and our interest. Self-love, in the present world, coincides with virtue. If there are any exceptions, all will be set right in the final distribution of things. Conscience and self-love, if we understand our true happiness, always lead us the same way. ”