Moral science

“ To make any position fully understood, it seems needful to add that, corresponding to the fundamental propositions of a developed Moral Science, there have been, and still are, developing in the race, certain fundamental moral intuitions ”

“ The dispute of the moralists has reference, not to any characteristic of the qualities in conduct which we cognize as moral, but to the mode in which they are cognized. Our conception of such qualities involves the conception of absoluteness in them, and it is only by that notion of absoluteness that they are distinguished from the other qualities which appear in human conduct, such as wisdom, prudence, ingenuity, and the like. ”

“ The great fact of moral distinctions, found to be universal in human thought and life, must be traced back to the particular power of the mind which discerns and feels these distinctions. Back of the phenomenon must be recognized the psychical capacity and action out of which the discriminations arise. The moral faculty answers to and in part accounts for the moral fact. In modern general literature it is usually called the conscience. Ethical science properly accepts the designation. It is sometimes called the moral consciousness, or the moral sense. ”

“ In what I have to say, therefore, of that kind of quality in human conduct which we call "moral," I shall distinguish it only by its absoluteness.
Every act in the conduct of a human being is incident to some one or more of the varied relationships by which his state of being is conditioned. Fundamentally, there are four groups of such relationships, subject to which every act of man is performed: 1. His relationships to inanimate Nature, or to the matter, the forces, and the routine processes, of his physical environment ”

“ The science of ethics crowns the edifice. This science H. considers as the goal of every philosophy. Here, too, we find an essential agreement with empirical and evolutionist morals. Morality is regarded as a part of universal conduct and interpreted physically; the good is reduced to the useful and the useful to the pleasant; moral instinct is explained by experience, heredity, environment, and justified by its happy consequences ”

“ What, in short, are the laws or principles governing the moral world, and how do these principles find expression in the life of man? Closely related to psychology and ethics, and furnishing them with a large body of facts, are the social sciences, which consider the thoughts, feelings and volitions of social organisms, or man in society; the ends which such organisms serve, and the means with which such ends are reached. Society, unconsciously or consciously, aims to realize certain ends. ”

“ But any system of morals which we may study as a science will never have much effect in forming our moral character. We must look to our constitutional temperament, to our passions and feelings as influenced by external circumstances ”

“ In what ways should the State seek to better human environment? What should be done in the way of public education? hat can be done by eugenics? What are the gravest moral dangers of our times? PROBLEMS OF CONDUCT INTRODUCTORY What is the field of ethics?
To know what exists, in its stark reality, is the concern of natural science and natural philosophy; to know what matters, is the field of moral philosophy, or ethics. The one group of studies deals with facts simply as facts, the other with their values. Human life is checkered with the sunshine and shadow of good and evil, joy and pain ”

“ At the present time few competent persons have largely investigated the fundamental relations of morality to Physical Science, consequently moral actions are usually considered not to have a scientific basis, and the doctrine is still extensively taught that some moral phenomena are essentially supernatural. ”

“ For moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different: and divers men, differ not only in their judgment, on the senses of what is pleasant, and unpleasant to the taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight; ”

“ First, it is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. ”

“ But, may it not be said, that every system of ethics must, or ought, to terminate, in plain and general maxims for the use of life? and, though in such axioms no discovery is made, does not the beauty of the moral theory consist in the premises, and the chain of reasoning that leads to the conclusion? ”

“ Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical
science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate;
but that which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its
remoter operation, and its excellence may arise even from the ill effects
it produces in the beginning. ”

“ They concerned the powers and possibilities of man in the crowning endowments of his nature, and in the highest ascent of their evident intention and adaptation. They touched the great problems of personal and social welfare in the most vital relations and decisive interests. So the old sages became moralists and their great themes were the themes of virtue and duty. Not very deeply, however, did they, for centuries, succeed in penetrating the rational principles of the moral life and the authority of the moral judgments. ”

“ In considering this subject, what I wish to bring before you is this: that ethics must always have their roots in psychology; that as our psychology is, so must our ethics be (that is, if we preserve any consistency in our reasoning) ; that a confused or imperfect or erroneous psychology must always issue in a confused or imperfect or erroneous moral theory; and that a correct moral theory is only to be reached through a correct psychological system. ”

“ For now let us observe that the ethical sentiment and idea, properly so-called, are independent of the ideas and sentiments above described as derived from external authorities, and coercions, and approbations—religious, political, or social. The true moral consciousness which we name conscience does not refer to those extrinsic results of conduct which take the shape of praise or blame, reward or punishment, externally awarded ”

“ That as personal morality becomes more and more complex, and hence knowledge by others less and less possible, we leave the judgment of an act more to the conscience of the individual, as vicegerent of the moral law. "Acts which are wrong when nobody knows them have come to be so by a process beginning with simple acts which are known, that is, known in their outward appearance." The act, known or unknown, leaves its impress upon character, raising or lowering the efficiency of the agent; and hence is judged good or bad. ”

“ But the question, 'Why should I be moral?' means, most naturally and usually, What inducements are there to me to do right?" The answer is that motives differ for different individuals. With some, outer social inducements, with others, the approbation and disapprobation of conscience are stronger. ”

“ 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? ”

“ When I attempt to convince any one that certain conduct which he considers right is wrong, by showing him that it is opposed to the general welfare, my final appeal is to his conscience. And in the same manner, when I correct some of my own moral conceptions, it is my conscience which determines me to the proof of them, and my conscience which is the standard that determines my decision. Conscience is the principle underlying my moral convictions. ”

“ We believe that a correct appreciation of psychology makes it abundantly clear that although there are many impulsive, instinctive and emotional factors totally unconnected with any rational or intellectual process which do, indeed, affect our moral judgments and give rise to ethical conventions, these factors can give no validity to moral codes ”

“ But we need no special moral faculty to teach us morality; it is prompted by thoughts and feelings that, as the result of a process of compromise, are thoughts and feelings adjusted to a social order. ”

“ Our investigations of the problem of morality have nothing to do, in the first instance, with moral principles which are, or profess to be, deduced from pure logic, independent of any particular fact; they deal with actual moral sentiments as historical facts. The word moral, as used in our considerations, does not, therefore, refer to an ideal moral code, but to the one actually existing in the case considered. ”

“ And this accords with the best cosmic philosophy.172 For this holds all these relations as parts of a rationally designed system of world-order for universal well-being, and the moral reason as capacitated to discern, with more or less clearness and fulness, the moral requirement which they involve and present for observance. We know of no morality that exists, or can exist, in human life, apart from them. Strike them all away, and all duties disappear. Take, as illustration, the most generic virtue of all the virtues recognized by the ethical judgments, that of good-will or love. ”

“ Moral laws, indeed, are intellectual facts, to be investigated as well as obeyed; and it is not a blind or blear-eyed conscience, but a conscience blended with intelligence and consolidated with character, that can both see and act. ”

“ Whatever may be said of our judgment of a past age by present standards, the standard by which we judge present action is not at all the average standard, but the highest moral ideal we can discover; and in this fact lies the whole significance of Ethics. ”

“ Of what may we justly affirm moral quality? Where does the conscience apply the distinctions of right and wrong? What are properly the objects, and the only objects, of moral approval or condemnation? Or, to put it in a way possibly more easily understood, to what human activities or features of life does moral quality belong?
It has already been noted in general that only personal beings can be moral agents or become, in what they are and do, objects of moral judgment. Apart from personality, no place for virtue or vice can be found. ”

“ But the important truth to observe is not the particular details of their haphazard origin but the causes of their survival. Overlaying the countless originating causes of moral ideals are two main preservation—causes, two constant factors which retain certain of the innumerable impulses for one reason or other momentarily dominant. These are of extreme significance for a comprehension of the function of morality in life. ”

“ It seems to have been assumed that moral principles can be reached by the application of scientific generalisations or of the results of a metaphysical analysis which has started by overlooking the facts of the moral consciousness. ”

“ But to pass from the one to the other, it seemed to us proper, by way of conclusion, to introduce here an order of researches which belongs to both practical and theoretical morals, the study, namely, of the means man has at his disposal in his moral self-perfection, either by curing himself of vice, or in advancing in virtue: this is what we call moral medicine and gymnastics. ”

“ Process (2) , which may be called a reconciliation of reason with itself, because it is the appropriation by reason as a personal principle in the individual of the work which reason, acting through the media of other persons, has already achieved in the establishment of conventional morality, is the condition of the third stage in which the moral progress of the individual consists; viz. the growth of a personal interest in the realisation of an idea of what should be, in doing what is believed to contribute to the absolutely desirable, or to human perfection, because it is believed to do so. ”

“ In just the same proportion as we recognise the law of causality, we shall also recognise the moral law. Reason itself is compelled to arouse in us conscience,—theoretical consciousness awakens ethical consciousness. ”

“ It would not repay us to investigate these difficulties in detail; they arise from doctrines which are not false in themselves, but each of which is false if taken as the expression of the whole truth, and their solution will come readily from the answer to the question, Who for the moral consciousness is the most moral man? ”

“ Might we not carry the analogy into morals, and ask, is it safe or prudent in us to investigate too deeply? are we wise in dissecting motives? or would it not be better to enjoy our moral as we do our material health, without seeking to assure ourselves further? ”

“ All this we maintain, because, if you are morally criticising a disposition, you must study what it is, not what are its accidental surroundings. Moral distinctions must apply to aims as such. Unless you are judging men exactly as you judge the north wind or the value of rain, not as consciously good or bad, but as mere forces that happen to produce such and such results under such and such conditions, you must study, not first the accidental circumstances, but the men. ”

“ Its modern forms have been greatly varied, but they all153 agree in founding the morally good in utility. That which experience shows to be useful, as promotive of personal or social interests and happiness, becomes thereby right, or the norm of moral choices and conduct. The theory, in all its modifications, is a "goods" theory,51 interpreting obligation as simply the behest to conform life to the attainment of the various forms of good, even the chief, as happiness or enjoyment, provided for in man's nature and condition. ”