Moral climate

“ The reader will readily understand that generalisations of this kind can pretend to nothing more than an approximate truth. Our knowledge of the laws of moral progress is like that of the laws of climate. ”

“ The growth of social cooperation is not necessarily accompanied by a corresponding development of the moral sentiments; increased cooperation in some cases involving a distinct ethical loss. In many directions, however, highly organised societies tend to evolve loftier types of morality; and it is in harmony with the facts to say that the highest moral types are not to be found where nature does most or where it does least in the way of providing food and shelter for man.
It is also interesting to observe the effect which climate, through the agency of religion, has had upon human conduct. ”

“ In addition to its incalculable practical importance, such knowledge would have a great philosophical value, throwing a new light upon the filiation of our moral qualities, enabling us to treat exhaustively the moral influence of climate, and withdrawing the great question of the influence of race from the impressions of isolated observers to place it on the firm basis of experiment. ”

“ Before entering on the question of the relation of morality to our existing social environment, it will be advisable to inquire what we mean by moral progress, and what evidence there is that any such progress has occurred in recent times, or even within the period of well-established history.
By morals we mean right conduct, not only in our immediate social relations, but also in our dealings with our fellow citizens and with the whole human race. ”

“ But the solution does not at all harmonize with the course of analysis followed in this essay. From the idea of an individual introduced into social conditions where poverty is absent, it generalizes to the whole of society introduced to a new set of laws. It forgets, in its definition of environment, that men themselves are the most important factor of the environment, and that, in order to change the environment, one must change the moral character of men with respect to each other. ”

“ Let them devote all their energies to purifying this whitened sepulchre of destitution and ignorance, and the beneficent laws of human nature will themselves bring about the physical, intellectual, and moral advancement of our race. ”

“ It is a recognition of this principle of systematic integration of interests and their concomitant obligations, starting from egoism, in the sense of a realization of the relation of self to environment, and then through successive stages of widening appreciation of the full contents of environment to the identification of the self with the community, which alone leads to State or National morality, and will lead, ultimately it may be hoped, to the morality of a community of all nations—that is, a world morality. ”

“ Starvation in one part of the globe will be met by the over-supply of bread in another. Oppression and tyranny in one nation will be opposed by the sense of fairness and overcome by the love of freedom in all the rest. As climatic conditions are made friendly to life by the circulation of oceanic and atmospheric currents, so moral health will be preserved by the circulation of the currents of conscience and justice.
[129]
IX.
The emphasis is to be kept on the social rather than the individual side of human nature; not that personality may be lost, but that it may be gained. ”

“ But I may safely say that civilization is a certain cumulative succession of modifications or changes in the state and character of men—which indicates the conception quite distinctly enough, and excludes every matter of debate. In like manner I may avoid the disputations of the ethical schools, and yet set out a notion of morals that will serve every present purpose of thinking, if I say that moral philosophy has for its subject human conduct, considered with reference to whatever absolute qualities may be found in it. ”

“ The individual character and life must be the continual progressive issue of this basis of tendency or capacity and the developing and modifying factors of environment. Individuals will, therefore, but in very different degrees and manners, reflect the moral standard of the society as organization, the class, and the family, to which they belong, the importance assumed by the class or family relations being according to the closeness and duration of association, and the natural aptitude of the individual for one or another sort of influence. ”

“ We are brought, then, face to face with the fact that there are certain directions in which the process of civilization appears to be much more certainly a process of moral development, as evinced in human conduct and character, than it does in others; certain particulars of conduct, that is, in which the fact of moral progress is undeniable, and certain others in which, at least, it is open to doubt. ”

“ When coupled with improved environment and with universal and rational education, it will surely mean the existence of a happier race of men-which should be the ultimate goal of all human endeavor. What are the gravest moral dangers of our times? ”

“ If we resume the moral progress of the nineteenth century, allowing for its inconsistencies, carefully weighing its negative and positive results, and taking as a balance what is original in its contribution to the ethical development of the human race, we will find that this contribution mainly lies in the direction of tolerance and of altruism. ”

“ There is in the world a constant evolution of higher out of lower forms of life. This applies also to society. And on this fact of evolution depends the true morality. The ideal morality is that form of adjustment of the social man to his environment towards which society in its progress forever tends.” How then shall we define our moral code? ”

“ But the view for which I contend is, that Morality properly so-called—the science of right conduct—has for its object to determine how and why certain modes of conduct are detrimental, and certain other modes beneficial. These good and bad results cannot be accidental, but must be necessary consequences of the constitution of things, and I conceive it to be the business of Moral Science to deduce from the laws of life and the conditions of existence what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce happiness and what kinds to produce unhappiness. ”

“ Society thus extended and tempered with the collective wisdom of a great nation, would check the fury of the passions, ambition, avarice and luxury, and substitute the affection of love, justice and temperance in their place; and the frequent operations of collective wisdom would bring man, in a short period, to the happy state of enlightened Nature.
Physical truth, which is the type of moral truth, is alone manifested to mankind. ”

“ To deny this is to find some other standard of advance than in the actual movement which has taken place, to put an a priori conception of development in place of the facts." "The moral ideal is always, therefore, a progress, for either the society is single, and goodness represents the law of its advance, or if the society is part of a larger one, its ideal can be retrogressive only because the society is so far bad." ”

“ As Benjamin Kidd truly observes, “When the intellectual development of any section of the race, for the time being, outruns the ethical development, natural selection has apparently weeded it out like any other unsuitable product.”3
As with the political and intellectual elements of civilization so is it with the economic. The outward forms of the moral life are, it is true, largely determined by the industry of a people; but the informing spirit of morality is the expression of an implanted faculty. It is elicited but not created by environment. ”

“ But as in this struggle the survival of the fittest does not necessarily mean the destruction of those who represented the defeated ideal, but the supplanting of their ideal by another, the movement is one of comprehension, and we should expect to find, and do find, the history of morality exhibit the gradual development of a universal moral order, good not for one group of men but for all. ”

“ It is encouraging to know, however, that life in its highest forms, that is, as represented by the most cultured aggregates of the human species, is evolving rapidly and irrepressibly toward the ideal, that is, toward a social state in which the interests and life of each individual being are more and more equally precious. What are civilization and morality? What do we mean by ethical progress? The growth of consideration for others—nothing more—simply cessation of, or abstinence from, exploitation. ”

“ The mental faculties which go to form the "character" of each man or woman are very numerous, a large proportion of them being such as are required for the preservation of the individual and of the race, while others are pre-eminently social or ethical. These latter, which impel us to truth, to justice, and to benevolence, when in due proportion to all the other mental faculties, go to form what we distinguish as a good or moral character, and will in most cases result in actions which meet with the general approval of that section of society in which we live ”

“ We must never forget that what to-day is deemed a moral law will to-morrow be cast into the melting-pot and transformed, so that in the near or distant future it may serve as the basis of a new ethical structure. ”

“ That is not life, that does not get us our daily bread, nor does it bring us honors—the laurel would hardly serve for a salad, nor produce ease, nor aid us in winning lawsuits, but quite the reverse! Every country has its code of ethics, as it has its climate and its diseases, different from the climate and the diseases of other countries. ”

“ They arise, as the individual's conception of the society on the well-being of which his own depends, and of the constituents of that well-being, becomes wider and fuller; and they are embodied in the laws, institutions, and social expectation, which make conventional morality. This embodiment, again, constitutes the moral progress of mankind. This progress, however, is only a moral progress in so far as it tends to bring about the harmony of will and reason, in the only form in which it can really exist, viz. ”

“ We are obliged to conclude, therefore, that what is commonly termed morality is not wholly due to any inherent perception of what is right or wrong conduct, but that it is to some extent and often very largely a matter of convention, varying at different times and places in accordance with the degree and kind of social development which has been attained often under different and even divergent conditions of existence. The actual morality of a community is largely a product of the environment, but it is local and temporary, not permanently affecting the character. ”

“ And this is what we gain by having had, as a people, in the ground of our being, a firm faith in conduct; by having believed, more steadfastly and fervently than most, this great law that moral causes govern the standing and the falling of men and nations. The law gradually widens, indeed, so as to include light as well as honesty and energy; to make light, also, a moral cause. Unless we are transformed we cannot finally stand, and without more light we cannot be transformed. ”

“ The old argument, used to prop the belief in conscience as an original, higher gift, and so, in the original creation of fixed species,—the argument that the same fundamental rules of moral conduct are to be found in all societies,—has already been answered in the demonstration that uniformities of human nature and necessary similarities in all social constitution render the fundamental rules of forbearance, aid, honesty, and truth necessary to all societies alike ”

“ What I have to note is that, in any case, the change supposes the necessity of a corresponding morality in the growth of the instincts, the public spirit, the hatred of indolence, the temperance and self-command which would be requisite to work it efficiently. The organisation into which we are born presupposes certain moral instincts, and, moreover, necessarily implies a vast system of moral discipline. Our hopes and aspirations, our judgments of our neighbours and of ourselves, are at every moment guided and moulded by the great structure of which we form a part. ”

“ Morality is largely determined by environment; and the state must so fashion the environment, that the moral life may ever flourish more abundantly in it. "You cannot found the brotherhood of Christ, where ignorance and misery, servility and corruption on the one side and culture, riches, power on the other prevent any mutual esteem and love. ”

“ Our civil environment is the government, the general and special laws, customs, and institutions of our country, and of the community in which we live. Our intellectual environment consists of all the means within our reach of gaining knowledge and the development of our intellectual faculties. Our moral and spiritual environment is composed of all the moral and spiritual influences in the midst of which we live and move. In its largest sense our environment comprises everything without and around us which can in any way affect our physical, moral, intellectual, or religious nature. ”

“ The present-day emphasis on the accurate verification of data somewhat obscures, but does not negate the fact, that every item of detail is in the end brought under some judgment of good or evil, of gain or loss in human welfare. All history is virtually a history of civilization; and civilization is a moral conception referring to the sum of human achievement in so far as this is pronounced good. ”

“ Further, the group in its distributive aspect is bringing such new elements into the here and now that life is wholly changed, and the ethical commands therein involved are different, and therefore the task of the group is to discover the new formulation which these new elements demand. The moral law thus gathers to itself all the richness of science, of art, of all the fulness of our daily living. ”