i. Fact and Value
HITHERTO we have been considering questions of fact, not questions of value, or of good and bad. The word "value" is very ambiguous, but it is a useful " hold-all" word to include all the sought and shunned1 aspects of experience. Pure science and pure logic2 are supposed to be concerned only with questions of fact, and not at all with the pleasantness, usefulness, goodness, or beauty of the facts which they discover. The physicist3 studies the behaviour of electrons without passing moral judgments5 on it. Utilitarian6, moral, or aesthetic7 motives9 may direct his attention to certain fields of study rather than to others; but he must so far as possible prevent these motives from influencing his actual study of facts. Truth itself is in a sense a value, not only for the utilitarian motives but for the motive8 of pure intellectual curiosity; since it is indeed something which is sometimes sought and admired for its own sake. On the other hand, values themselves are in some sense facts. It is a fact that, men being what they are, food has value for them. It is a fact that for the lover the beloved is a thing of value. It is a fact that for Christians10 love itself has value or is a value. These statements are all in some sense true statements of fact. It is our concern in this chapter to form as clear an idea as possible of the nature of their common element, namely, value.
ii. Some Distinctions and Problems
To avoid confusion let us make a few preliminary distinctions. Some of them may turn out to be mistaken or superficial, but it is necessary to grasp them clearly at the outset, if only to be able to dismiss them.
First we must distinguish between the thing that is valued and the activity of valuing it, between a drink, or the act of drinking-a-drink, and the enjoying of drinking-a-drink; between the beloved and the act of cherishing her; between loving and the act of valuing love itself.
We must also distinguish between external objects valued and one's own activity valued. In the case of drinking, the object is the actual liquid, the activity is what we do with the liquid, namely, drinking. Strictly11, what we value is drinking-a-drink. Both drink and drinking are distinct from the valuing or enjoying. In this case it is clear that what we value or enjoy is a complex made up of certain objective sensory12 characters (coolness, bitterness, fragrance13, etc.) and a certain muscular activity of our own. In the case of the beloved also we must distinguish the object (a physical and mental "person"), what we do with the object (activities physical and mental), and the act of valuing or enjoying. Once more we value or enjoy both the object and our activity. But while in the case of the drink we may incline to say that we value the object merely as a means for the activity, in the case of the beloved some would probably insist that they valued her mainly for her own sake and not merely as a means. They might say that they appreciate her intrinsic excellence15.
In both cases another problem arises. Do we value the "pleasure" which the object or the activity affords, or is "pleasure" itself simply the activity of valuing something other than itself? According to the doctrine16 of Hedonism we value intrinsically only our own pleasure; other things we value' only as means to our own pleasure. Is this true?
Clearly, whatever the truth about pleasure, we must make a general. distinction between "ends" and " means," or between the things that we value for their own sake and the things that we value only as instruments for the attainment17 of other things. We may call things that are valued for their own sake "intrinsically good," and things that are valued only as means "instrumentally good." When a man is thirsty he values the act of drinking as intrinsically good, though he may also value certain sensations. At other times he may value it only as a means to health or to social intercourse18; that is, as instrumentally good.
Things that we originally valued only as means may come to be valued as ends. Money, or rather the activity of acquiring it, which for most of us is a means, becomes for the miser19 an end. On the other hand, things that we formerly20 valued as ends may come to be discarded, or sought only as means. We outgrow21 our childish tastes.
The question arises, are there any things, or is there anyone kind of thing, which we cannot but value intrinsically? Many answers have been given to this question. Besides the Hedonist's answer, that we value only "pleasure" for its own sake, there is the Idealist's that we value only "self-fulfilment," sometimes in partial and imperfect forms, more reasonably as fulfilment of the "personality" as a systematic22 whole. There are also other possible answers.
Another problem which arises is this. Is "goodness" a character actually belonging to some things and not to others, in the manner in which roundness is thought to belong to things; or is the supposed goodness of a thing illusory? Is the truth merely that we call a thing good when it fulfils a certain function in relation to ourselves or to the human race?
The word "good" is certainly very ambiguous. When we say that a thing is good, we may mean simply that it pleases us, or we may mean to attribute a certain unique character to it, or we may mean simply that it ought to be.
When we say that a thing "ought" to be, or happen, we may mean merely that, assuming a certain purpose, the thing is necessary as a means to the achievement of that purpose. (If you want to understand Frenchmen you ought to take lessons in French.) Or we may mean a moral "ought." (A man ought to befriend his fellows.) Can this moral "ought" also be derived24 from some purpose? And if so, is it God's purpose, or whose? If, on the other hand, the moral "ought" is not connected with any sort of purpose, what sense can there be in the notion of a moral claim which binds25 us whether we will or not? Or is moral obligation an illusion?
Let us begin by briefly26 noticing some of the most important ethical27 theories.
iii. Some Traditional Theories
(b) Hedonism and Utilitarianism
(a) Plato and Aristotle — We have already seen that Plato distinguished29 sharply between particular things and the universal forms toward which they approximate, and that for him the form was not only a. form but an ideal which the thing strove to embody30. He thus distinguished between two spheres of being, the realm of imperfect things and the realm of perfect forms. The form of man was the ideal to which all men approximate, and it existed independently of actual men. Justice was the ideal form of all just acts, which each act in turn "strove" to embody. Truth, goodness, and beauty were logically independent of all examples of them.
This view is repugnant to the typically modern mind. We have come to suspect every kind of theory in which the actual world is less real than some unseen ideal world. We know too well, by bitter experience, that such views may encourage complacency toward the ills of our fellows in this world. Moreover, our obsession31 with physical science makes us impatient with the idea that there may be a reality beyond the flux32 of time and the passions of this world.
Neither of these motives affords a reasonable criticism of the Platonic33 theory. Indeed, the fact that we feel as we do suggests that we are unduly34 impressed by the physical and the ephemeral.
Nevertheless we must, I think, reject the Platonic; theory as a straightforward35 account of the status of good and evil as we actually experience it. We have, after all, no good reason to believe that the ideal form of man is a pattern subsisting36 independently of the actual world. It is simply a possibility implied in the nature of actual men. In our experience we find that certain human characters and activities are good. We intuit them as such. Love, for instance, and courage are known only in actual instances. We find them always imperfect, mingled37 with other characters which detract from their full being. The ideal is simply an abstraction from the imperfect instances.
Plato's great pupil Aristotle developed his master's theory in his own manner. For him the ideal was, in fact, something implicit38 in our own nature. The ideal form of manhood was implicit in the imperfect desires of particular men. "Good" was to be derived from desire. But since desires conflict, and are moreover of different ranks of importance, we must not allow any of them extravagant39 expression to the detriment40 of others. Hence the famous doctrine of the Mean. One capacity only may be given free rein41, namely, the capacity for reasoning and for desiring the truth; since the special function of this is to rule and judge between all the others. Thus from Aristotle we learn two important principles which play a great part in subsequent ethical thought, namely, that the good, to constitute a motive for action, must appeal to something in our own nature, and that the ideal is the systematic or harmonious42 fulfilment of human capacities.
(b) Hedonism and Utilitarianism — Under the influence of Hume and of modern scientific materialism43 there arose a very different attitude toward ethical problems. In this view the individual mind was simply a sequence of mental states, some of which were pleasant and some unpleasant. Good and evil were therefore identical with the pleasure and displeasure of the individual mind.
The word "Hedonism" covers two distinct theories, one psychological, the other ethical. According to Psychological Hedonism a man always desires his own pleasure and cannot possibly desire anything, else. Is this true? The claim is that, when we seek anything, what we are "really" seeking is the pleasantness which it is expected to afford us. Thus if a man wants to drink, or to excel over his fellows, or to champion a cause, what he is really seeking in each case is identical, namely, the experience of pleasure. The theory abstracts the pleasantness of the act and regards it as the sole object of desire.
This account is psychologically incorrect. It is true of course that the attainment of our ends gives us pleasure. But why do we desire those ends? Not because they promise pleasure, but for their own sake. Certain situations stimulate44 us to certain actions, and our free functioning in these actions pleases us. Pleasure is nothing but the "pleasedness " that we feel in the success of our enterprises. This is equally true of complex, highly developed activities and of simple, animal activities. Superficially we may, of course, say that a child eats sweets "for the pleasure of eating them." More correctly, it is pleased with eating them because it wants to eat them, in the sense that some active factor in its psycho-physical make-up is felt to be afforded free activity by eating sugar. If it goes on eating sugar for long enough there will come a time when it becomes aware of the impact of sugar more as thwarting45 than as fulfilling. Then the pleasure gives place to disgust. In a sense, of course, it is true that a man desires only his own pleasure, since, obviously, in desiring any object whatever he ipso facto makes that object become an object of his desire; and when he attains46 the object he will be pleased. But what made it seem desirable? Not, in the first instance, the abstracted "pleasedness" afforded by having it, but its felt favourableness48 to his own active nature. To abstract the feeling from the rest, and then affirm that what a man seeks is this abstraction, is a mistake.
Psychological Hedonism, then, is false. Ethical Hedonism is based on Psychological Hedonism. It says in effect not only that a man can only desire his own pleasure, but, further, that his own pleasure is what he ought to desire. Pleasure, one's own pleasure, is the sole good. But if we can only desire our own pleasure, what significance is there in saying that we ought to desire it? The word "ought" surely implies the possibility that we might not do what we ought.
Hedonism, psychological and ethical, is the foundation of the ethical theory of Utilitarianism. Of Utilitarianism as a principle for the direction of public affairs much good might be said; but Utilitarianism as a philosophical49 doctrine is a tissue of false argument The theory may be summed up as follows: "A man can only desire his own pleasure. Therefore pleasure alone is desirable. Pleasure is pleasure whether it is my pleasure or another's. Therefore what I ought to desire is the greatest amount of pleasure for as many people as possible," or "the greatest happiness of the greatest number."
In this argument the word "desirable" is ambiguous. It may mean either "able to be desired" or "ought to be desired." Professor G. E. Moore has exposed the consequent fallacy. The proposition, "A man can only desire his own pleasure," implies the proposition, "Pleasure alone is desirable," only if "desirable" means "can be desired." The proposition, “therefore pleasure alone is desirable" cannot imply ethical consequences unless "desirable" is taken not in the psychological but the ethical sense, namely, as equivalent to "ought to be desired." But in this sense the proposition, "Pleasure alone is desirable" does not follow from the proposition, "A man can only desire his own pleasure."
Moreover, the starting-point of the argument is the proposition that a man can only desire his own pleasure. How then can he possibly be under obligation to desire other people's pleasure, the greatest happiness of the greatest number?
Another serious difficulty has to be faced by Utilitarianism. How are we to form a calculus50 of pleasure? It is essential for Utilitarianism that pleasure should be always one and the same measurable thing, wherever it occurs. If there are different kinds of pleasure, how are we to measure one kind of pleasure against another, say, the pleasure of football against the pleasure of philosophy? Still worse, how are we to measure one man's pleasure in philosophy against another's; or, worse again, against another man's pleasure in (say) martyrdom? It is true that in a given situation we can roughly estimate which of two acts will give us more pleasure. But very often we incline to feel that the act which (we should say) gives less pleasure is in fact the better act in some obscure but important sense. For instance, it is commonly agreed that helping51 the needy52, though irksome, is better than feasting. The Ethical Hedonist and the Utilitarian assure us that actually we shall get more pleasure out of helping than out of feasting. But when this is true, which is not always, the greater pleasure is surely consequent on our belief that the act of helping is socially desirable, or right.
Faced with this difficulty, John Stuart Mill, the greatest Utilitarian, admitted that pleasures differ in quality as well as in intensity53 or quantity of pleasurableness, and declared that those of higher quality were more desirable (morally) than those of lower quality. But this admission undermines the whole doctrine, since it introduces something other than the single criterion of pleasurableness.
(c) Idealist Ethics — Modern Idealist philosophers riddled54 Hedonism and Utilitarianism with much shrewd criticism and offered theories of their own. The pioneer was Kant, impressed by "the starry55 heaven above and the moral law within." So far was he from agreeing with the subjectivistic doctrine of Hedonism that he went to the extreme of objectivism. The moral law, though "within," must be wholly objective, independent of human desires. He even went so far as to say that a "good" act done with pleasure was not really a morally good act at all, since a morally good act must have no motive but the goodness of the act itself. There is nothing good, he said, but it good will. For him the central principle of morality was rationality. His "categorical imperative56" was expressed in the formula, "Act only on that maxim57 which thou canst at the same time will to become a universal law." Thus we must not lie and we must not murder, because we cannot will lying and murder to be universal. To this principle Kant added another, namely, that "man, and generally any rational being, exists as an end in himself." From this it followed that we must treat human beings always as ends, not merely as means. But they were to be treated as ends simply because they were rational beings, not because they were active, desiring beings.
The fundamental criticism of Kant's moral theory is this. Good cannot be derived from sheer rationality. Lying, for instance, may in some circumstances be right. Kant apparently58 failed to see that what I can and cannot will to become a universal law depends in the last resort not on sheer rationality but on my active dispositions60 or needs. In fact, he did not recognise that good must be in some way connected with human capacity, otherwise it could never afford a motive for action.
Later Idealist philosophers, for instance F. H. Bradley, avoided this error, by stressing Kant's other principle, namely, that individuals must be treated as ends. According to them a man can only desire the fulfilment of his self, by which they meant something very different from pleasure. Like Kant, they thought of a man not as a mere14 centre of pleasant and unpleasant experiences, but as a system of experience or of "mental content "— in fact, a universe of experience which included, along with experience of his own body and his own individual personal needs, his experience of other persons. It followed, they said, that he could not gain true self-fulfilment so long as the demands of the self as a whole system, including the known needs of other selves, were left unfulfilled. Necessarily there would be conflict within the self, and some needs would have to go unsatisfied; but any such frustration61 must be subordinate to, or an actual means to, the fulfilment of the self as a whole system of active capacities, some of which were subordinate to others.
Of course, we do not actually desire the ideal self-fulfilment which involves the fulfilment of society as a whole. We desire all sorts of less comprehensive ends, some very trivial, some flagrantly in conflict with the good of others, or of society as a whole. Idealist Ethics admits this, but distinguishes between a man's "actual" but imperfect will, and his "real" and perfect will, which demands complete self-fulfilment, and therefore the good of society. Though he does not ever effectively will this goal, or at best seldom does, it is logically implied (we are told) in his actual will. For to will some of the ends demanded in his experience, and not all, is irrational62. The fact that some are needs of his private self and some are needs of other selves is said to be irrelevant63 to their being needs experienced within the horizon of his mind. The needs of his body and private person as opposed to those of others (we are told) are simply one set of needs within his experience. Though he is apt to feel them with greater intensity than the needs of others, they have no peculiar64 status in relation to his "real" will.
It follows from the theory that though the actual wills of individuals differ and conflict, their "real" wills, which will the fulfilment of all men, are harmonious, nay65 identical. The "real" will of each individual, it is claimed, is the completely rational will, the completely social will, the Good Will.
Moral obligation, in this theory, is the claim exercised by the real will over the imperfect actual will. Once you begin to will at all, you must, logically-morally, will the Good Will. To do less is to defeat your own essential nature.
I shall now try to state some of the main criticisms that have been made against Idealist Ethics. What reason is there to say that the will for the lower activities logically implies the will for the higher ones? Does the cynical66 will for self-aggrandisement at the expense of others imply the social will? From the pure egotist's point of view the social will is flagrantly irrational, for the cogent67 reason that the good of others happens to them and not to him. Even those who do at least spasmodically will the social good may well doubt whether the social will is logically implied in the self-regarding Will. Rather it seems' to demand a genuine awakening68 of new sensibility to something novel which could not be deduced from the more familiar ends. However this may be, we must insist that, if in his blind state a man cannot recognise the logical implication of his will, the moral claim has no application to him.
Moreover, what if, in his moral perversity69, he snaps his fingers at rationality itself? It may well be true that, as a matter of fact, he cannot find self-fulfilment unless he does will the rational; social Good Will; but what if he rejects the goal of logically perfect self fulfilment and insists on desiring only partial and perhaps thoroughly70 immoral71 ends? Is there any sense in saying that his obligation to will something better than this lies in the fact that, to a being superior to him, his conduct appears irrational and immoral?
We may put the criticism in another way. For the theory to work it is essential that the good will should be my will in the sense that it actually does appeal to me as the way of self-fulfilment for me, for this particular conscious being with all its limitations. But if it is my will in this sense, morality is reduced to prudent72 self-regard. On the other hand, if we stress the objectivity of the moral claim, insisting that the good is independent of my actual will, then the theory's explanation of the moral claim is a mere play upon words.
But though the Idealist theory of moral obligation should be rejected as it stands, we must, I think, agree that rationality plays a very important part in moral experience. In a very real sense the good will is the rational will; and one motive of moral conduct is the will for rationality, the will to detach the will from personal favouritism, to regard all men, including oneself, as on the same footing. This motive of objectivity and rationality has played a great part; and does provide, for those who actually will it, a logical basis for obligation.
(d) Ethics of Evolutionism — The theory of biological evolution is sometimes made the basis of a confused and dangerous ethical theory. The discovery that certain species have evolved from simpler types, and that man himself is in this 'sense the flower of the evolutionary73 process, suggested that there must be some sort of "life force" striving to produce ever more developed types, and that "good" and "bad" must mean at bottom "favourable47 to" and "unfavourable to" the evolutionary process.
This theory is only plausible74 because in the case of man's evolution the direction of change has led on the whole to the increase of those characters which we do admire, such as intelligence and affection. Were we living in an epoch75 of biological degeneration we should not be tempted76 to derive23 goodness from evolution. Progress is by no means general. Many biological types have stagnated77; many have declined. Evolutionary ethics, moreover, could only seem plausible during a spell of social advancement78, such as that which was occurring in Western Europe when Evolutionary Ethics became popular. To-day, when our society threatens to collapse79, the theory looks less plausible.
Such considerations are not really relevant to the truth or falsity of the theory. What matters is rather that we know very little of the causes and direction of evolution; while good and bad are experienced every day in our own lives. It is certainly arguable that what is intrinsically good is richness and depth of experience and fullness of creative living (if I may be pardoned a very vague phrase). It is true also that in some cases evolution has moved in that direction. It is even possible that there is some sort of bias80 in this direction in the universe. But to derive our moral experience from that bias is to derive the known from the unknown and problematical. "Good" is not good because it is the goal of evolution; rather evolution is good (if it really is good) because its goal is something which we recognise as good.
Moreover, to explain "good" by evolution is like explaining the falling of a stone by saying that it has a capacity for falling. In the case of gravitation, the only kind of explanation that can be usefully given is a systematic description of gravitational happenings, not an explanation in terms of an entirely82 unknown metaphysical entity83. Similarly with moral experience, we can explain only by systematically84 describing all kinds of moral experience and relating them to other descriptive facts about human nature and the objective world. It is useless to postulate85 an unknown metaphysical entity.
(e) Intuitionism — I shall now describe and criticise86 a theory which starts by insisting that moral experience is unique, and not to be explained in terms of anything other than itself. Philosophers who hold this theory claim that "good" and "bad" are unique objective characters which belong to some things and not to others; and that in apprehending87 them we simply intuit that "good" ought to be, and "bad" ought not to be, and that "good" ought to be striven for and "bad" striven against. In this view the word "good" and the phrase "ought to be and be striven for" have identical meaning. And that meaning is unanalysable and indefinable. We all know intuitively what that meaning is, but according to the theory we can no more explain or describe it to a non-moral being than we can explain or describe colour to a man born blind.
In this country Professor G. E. Moore has been the chief exponent89 of this view. He argued that "good" could not be simply identical with "pleasant " or with "self-fulfilling " or with "fit to survive" or any other character, because if it were identical with any of them we should not be able to distinguish between it and the other.
In particular, "good," he says, is not to be identified with "desired." The good is not good because we desire it, or because God desires it, or because the fully81 enlightened mind would desire it. On the contrary, we desire it (so far as we do desire it) because it is good. We simply intuit it as desirable, in the moral sense. It is such that it imposes moral obligation onus90.
If "good" is intuited in this direct manner, it may be objected, how is it that moral judgments conflict, and are therefore capable of error? If we intuit " good" and "bad" in the same sense as we intuit sensory characters, such as "red" and "salt," how comes it that we can make mistakes about them? We cannot make mistakes about sensory intuition. To this objection it is answered that we cannot really make mistakes about moral intuition. Moral situations, however, are often very complex situations in which the moral factor itself may be very easily overlooked or mis-described. We may, it is said, fail to analyse out from the situation that in it which is good (or bad); but if once we do see the situation accurately91, we cannot but see the good and the bad in it, if we are morally sensitive beings.
We must note one serious difficulty in the Intuitionist theory. It is claimed that the unique, objective character "good" constitutes a motive for action in the moral agent. He recognises that he ought to establish it. But, as Aristotle long ago pointed92 out, nothing wholly external to the self can provide a motive for action. Obligation, that is, must, after all, appeal to something in a man's own nature. If this is true, the Intuitionist account of the matter is quite unintelligible93. On the other hand, if "good" is, after all, identical with fulfilment of capacity, then it does appeal to something in our own nature. And the moral claim exercised over us by other individuals for their fulfilment springs from our cognition of their capacities as capacities, as needs of the same order as our own, and as appealing to us through the medium of our imagination and our will for rationality.
But though this fundamental criticism must be made against Intuitionism, the theory remains95 true, I suggest, in a special sense. In experiencing some particular activity (say, love) one does experience the activity as morally good, as "ought to be" and "ought to be fostered by all who can see what it is." And the goodness of the activity is intuited as a character objective to the intuitive recognition of it. On the other hand, this "good" character of love can only constitute a motive for action in so far as one does experience it (in the first instance) as a character of one's own activity, of one's own being. Only because it is first recognised as a character of one's own activity is it known to be also a character of the activity of others. And the moral claim to foster love in others constitutes a moral motive for one's own action only through one's own will for rationality. But before accepting this view we must examine two kinds of radical96 ethical scepticism, both of which have come into prominence97 during the present century.
iv. Ethical Scepticism: Ethnology and Psychoanalysis
(a) The Subjectivity98 of Value
(b) Social Determinants of Morality
(c) Economic Determinants of Morality
(d) Psycho-analysis and Morality
(a) The Subjectivity of Value — We have considered several types of ethical theory, none of which can be regarded as entirely satisfactory. I shall now set forth99 and criticise the main arguments of those who regard "good" and "bad," "right" and "wrong" as entirely subjective100.
Value, they assert, is essentially101 value for some conscious individual. Even if psychological hedonism is false, the truth remains, we are told, that a man cannot value anything other than the fulfilment of his own activities, and the means thereto. Nothing, then, can be good in itself, apart from anyone's valuation of it. The idea of an objective good is not merely false, it is meaningless. Meaningless, too, is the idea that moral obligation has some mysterious kind of objective sanction. No intelligible94 account can be given of these ideas. On the other hand, a perfectly102 satisfactory account can be given of their historical origin. They are, in fact, superstitions103 generated in men's minds by social forces. They can be described scientifically in terms of the established principles of psychology104 and anthropology105.
(b) Social Determinants of Morality — Man is a gregarious106 animal. Morality is a consequence of his social habits. For creatures that are not gifted with formidable weapons gregariousness107 has survival value. The more the individuals of a group tend to live together and act together, the better the group's chance of circumventing108 its enemies. Consequently those groups tended to survive in which the individuals were knit together by strong group-feeling; that is, in which there was a strong disposition59 to conform with other members of the group in physical and mental behaviour, and a strong disposition to enforce conformity110 upon those who were in any way eccentric. Thus by natural selection (we are told) there grew up a craving111 to conform to the customs of the group and to feel mentally at one with the group. Along with this appeared the impulse to condemn112 those who dared to infringe113 the customary ways of behaving and thinking and feeling. Such, it is claimed, are the biological and psychological roots of all moral aspiration114 and moral censure115.
One of the main factors determining the particular customs and moral feelings of a group would obviously be survival value. Useful customs would tend to be perpetuated116, harmful ones would tend to vanish. But we should indeed be innocent if we were to suppose that social utility was the sole determinant of morality. In the first place we must remember that customs tend to fall out of date. The circumstances to which they were originally adapted give place to new ones in which the customary mode of behaviour may be positively117 harmful. Then the moral feelings that sanctify and maintain that custom, and are inculcated in each successive generation by education, will resist any attempt to change the custom to suit the new circumstances. Thus archaic118 customs, formerly beneficial, may survive for ages, supported by irrational prejudice and defended by all manner of specious119 and subtle argument.
But this is not all. Groups have leaders, individuals who by their real service to the group or by mere personal dominance over their fellows, or by some purely120 factitious glamour121, focus on themselves the loyalty122 of the rank and file, and are taken as patterns which all humbler individuals seek to imitate. Of course, if the example of the leaders too flagrantly violates the group's sanctified customs, it will be rejected. But the prestige of leadership may afford the leaders considerable freedom to found a morality of their own. In one obvious respect their behaviour tends to differ from that of the masses. They develop customs suited to their particular position; and since they have prestige and power they inculcate in the masses, by force and propaganda, certain customs and moral feelings which are likely to strengthen their own position as leaders. Thus there will appear a special morality for leaders and a somewhat different morality for lowly folk. But at the same time much of the morality of the leaders will be adopted as an ideal by the lowly also, though it may be quite unsuited to their condition.
These principles must be applied123 not only to the early but to the later stages of the history of morals. But in the later stages the complexity124 and weight (so to speak) of past morality tends more and more to hinder new situations from bringing about adequate moral changes. On the other hand, in the modern world industrialisation has produced very rapid changes in the structure of society itself; so that even the huge dead weight of moral tradition has begun to be shifted more rapidly than ever before, though not without resistance.
Another important difference distinguishes the modern from the primitive125 ages of human development. In the modern phase, and indeed throughout the whole period of civilisation126, the morality of the leaders is no longer a simple code of chieftainship but a mixture made up of such elements as: vestiges127 of archaic moralities; incursions from the morality of the subordinate classes during times of moral revolution (e.g. early Christianity); vestiges of the moralities of subsequent dominant128 classes (e.g. feudal129 or military or commercial aristocracies); and, finally, new principles or new applications of old principles, forced on the dominant class by its struggle to maintain its power (e.g. some characteristics of Fascism).
Roughly, the more secure the leaders feel themselves to be, the more generous their morality. On the other hand, the more precarious130 their hold, the more will they be forced to the conviction that, for the good of society itself, they must at all costs maintain the existing order and their dominant position in it. In all sincerity131 they will tend in the long run to believe that practices of the most deceitful, ruthless, and even brutal132 kind are not merely permissible133. but obligatory134, if they seem to promise the maintenance of the status quo.
(c) Economic Determinants of Morality — Clearly the main underlying135 factor which determines the history of morality as sketched136 above is the economic factor. Different kinds of morality will develop in different economic environments. A hunting community will perhaps stress hardihood, an agricultural community industriousness137. A feudal aristocracy will glorify138 the martial139 prowess by which it maintains its position. The virtues140 prized in a commercial class are likely to be those which helped it to gain and retain power — in fact, the business virtues of prudence141, reliability142, and individual initiative. A commercial oligarchy143 will also tend to regard as morally right the principle of unrestrained commercial competition between individuals, and as morally wrong the workers' attempt to combine to secure better conditions. A society organised on the basis of private enterprise will probably incline to take as its effective ideal that of the outstandingly successful commercial individual — in fact, the millionaire. A society in which modern industrial activity has reached a very high pitch and is not consciously planned for social welfare will tend to glorify industrial power as an end and not merely a means. A society in which a proletarian class has achieved a successful social revolution by combining against the employers will glorify comradeship, group-loyalty, and the proletarian virtues of manual toil144.
In a later chapter I shall discuss the theory of Economic Determinism in relation not merely to morality but to the whole of the life of society. Meanwhile let us pass from the social determinants of morality to another class of influences which seem to support Ethical Scepticism.
(d) Psycho-analysis and Morality — Ethical Scepticism can be defended by arguments derived from Psycho-analysis and from General Psychology.
We must distinguish between those psycho-analytical doctrines146 which are common to all schools of Psychoanalysis and those in respect of which there is serious difference of opinion. Those on which there is agreement among psycho-analysts are also accepted by most psychologists and deserve careful attention. It is not merely the doubtful doctrines, but those on which there is general agreement, which seem to support Ethical Scepticism.
One doctrine which is accepted as a working hypothesis by all psychologists is the doctrine of Psychological Determinism, according to which any particular experience or activity is determined147 by the preceding state of the organism and the environment. The justification148 for this hypothesis lies in the fact that up to a point men do behave in a regular and predictable manner, and that psychologists have discovered much more system, and therefore determinism, than was formerly supposed to exist. The concept of moral obligation is generally thought of as involving freedom to do either the right or the wrong act. Psychological Determinism seems to rule out this possibility.
Psychology has certainly not yet been able to demonstrate that human behaviour is systematic or determinate through and through. It has merely brought to light an increasing number of regularities149 in behaviour. But let us suppose that some day it succeeds in proving determinism conclusively150. Then, though the arbitrariness of moral choice would be excluded, it might still be that one among the many factors determining behaviour was, indeed, the moral motive, but that this motive, like all others, took effect in a regular manner and was therefore predictable. Different individuals in different circumstances might have determinate degrees of the power of freely and spontaneously resisting temptation and holding to the path of moral rectitude.
Leaving aside this general question, let us note the more special ways in which Psychology, and particularly Psycho-analysis, seems to support Ethical Scepticism.
Conscious behaviour, it is claimed, is largely determined by needs or cravings which are "unconscious," which are not accessible to introspection. Long before the days of Freud "unconscious prejudice" was recognised as an important fact; but Freud used this familiar concept as the basis of a comprehensive theory of human behaviour. In particular he used it to explain our moral experience. If all moral judgments are at bottom cases of unconscious and irrational prejudice derived from past experiences that are not really relevant to the present judgment4 at all, it is nonsense to suppose that conscience is a unique faculty151, by which we distinguish between the objectively right and the objectively wrong.
Freud's great contribution to psychology was undoubtedly152 the concept of mental conflict and repression153, with consequent unconscious motivation. His own detailed154 account of the mechanism155 of repression and the "content of the unconscious" is disputed by other schools, but the general principle is accepted. The essential concept of the "unconscious mind," with its "unconscious mental processes," its unconscious desirings and thinkings, is open to very serious philosophical objections; but there is agreement that, however confusedly Freud has described the concept, it really does mean something of very great importance for the understanding of human behaviour. We may perhaps make " unconscious mental process " more intelligible by describing it as mental processes which we are incapable156 of introspecting. We cannot attend to the fact that we are having them.
According to the general theory, when one set of our needs (or cravings) conflicts with another set, repression may occur. Cravings which are violently repugnant to the main system of experience (the dominant, conscious personality) may be "thrust below the threshold of consciousness," may cease to be introspectable. But though they are in this sense "unconscious," they continue to influence behaviour and emotion, and particularly our moral judgments.
Our moral experience, it is claimed, is of the same nature as taboo157 in primitive society. Certain acts are "not done." The very contemplation of them arouses horror and shame. The taboos158 of primitive races, which they themselves accept uncritically as self-evidently right and divinely sanctioned, often seem to us irrational and fantastic. Certain animals must not be killed by any member of the tribe. Men must not marry women of the same tribe. Certain obscure ritual acts must be performed at certain seasons. Such irrational and highly emotional taboos (we are told) are expressions of unconscious needs generated in each member of the tribe by his own mental conflicts in connection with his relations with his own parents, and handed on and embroidered159 from generation to generation. The taboo animal and the taboo act symbolise emotionally cravings repressed since childhood. We easily forget that many of our own most cherished moral convictions would seem quite as arbitrary as savage160 customs to those who were not brought up to accept them. It is probable (we are told) that the true explanation of our own morality is of precisely161 the same type as that of primitive morality.
The defender162 of ethical objectivity may reply that, of course, much of our moral experience is indeed irrational and arbitrary, but that there are certain fundamental simple moral intuitions which cannot be undermined. For instance, it may be said, the commandment, "Love thy neighbour," is the expression of a genuine intuition.
Many psychologists, however, would deny this. They would insist that even the most refined and generalised moral intuitions must be explained by the same principles as, the most primitive. In one way or another everything in moral experience must have developed out of the infant's behaviour, which, they assure us, is completely ego-centric and irresponsible. There may be room for doubt as to the particular "mechanism" by which this evolution has come about, but the general principle, it is claimed, is certain.
In the Freudian view, the depth and intensity of moral experience, both the horror of guilt163 and the passionate164 aspiration for moral purity, must be traced to the infant's relations with its parents. The violence of moral emotions and their resistance to criticism point to an infantile source. In the child's early days mother and father dominate its experience, and mould its character for ever after. In respect of each parent its mind is tom (we are told) by a conflict of love and hate, love on account of benefits received and hate on account of restrictions165 imposed. The love, it is insisted, is in the first instance sheer "cupboard love;" and the hate is of the same order. The conscious personality is taught to be ashamed of the hate; which is in consequence re- pressed, to generate in the "unconscious" all manner of irrational prejudices and needs for destructive action. Love, on the other hand, which the parents applaud, is idealised all the more through revulsion from repressed hate. All moral guilt is at bottom (we are told) guilt for the infringement166 of taboos enforced in childhood. Even if we hesitate to accept the Freudian contention167 that in origin it is the guilt of hostility168 to the father or the mother, and of forbidden sexual love for the mother or the father, the general tenor169 of the argument must, I think, be taken very seriously.
(e) Criticism — The foregoing arguments for Ethical Scepticism are very strong, but they should not be accepted as final.
Let us begin by considering the arguments derived from Psycho-analysis. Of course, the detail of the explanation is little more than guess-work, and has been supported by a good deal of faulty argument. But what of the general principle that conscious value- judgments are the expression of unconscious and often trivial wishes? This principle must, I think, be accepted as at any rate true of many particular moral feelings. It follows that moral intuitions must not be taken simply at their face value. They must certainly be subjected to severe criticism, even if radical Ethical Scepticism is not justified170.
The nerve of the argument derived from Psychoanalysis consists of the charge that all moral feelings develop from the experience of the infant, and that the infant is wholly egotistical. To this contention serious objections must be made. The first is a very general and very important objection. The analytic145 method, which has been so successful in the case of physical science, may be the right method for the understanding of human behaviour; but there is always a danger that, in our zeal171 for analysis and explanation in terms of constituent172 parts, we shall overlook some subtle aspects of human behaviour which are not actually reducible to simple factors. Whatever the state of the infant mind, it may be that, through the operation of intelligence and imagination, the individual comes to conceive essentially new ends, not reducible to the ends sought in infancy173. In the present sketchy174 state of psychology a confident denial of this possibility smacks175 of sheer prejudice in favour of analysis.
A more particular criticism must be made. The vogue176 of Psychoanalysis was partly due to the cogency177 of evidence and partly to the emotional release which the doctrine afforded to minds that had been dominated by Victorian self-righteousness and prudery. Inevitably178 emotional acceptance of the new doctrines blinded people to their intellectual weaknesses. After a while, however, many of those who had welcomed Psychoanalysis felt misgivings179 about some of its arguments. Wohlgemuth, once a follower180 of Freud, exposed the weakness of some analyses by Freudians. More recently Ian Suttie has criticised Psycho-analysis from a somewhat different angle. He suggests that in modern Europe there occurred a widespread emotional reaction against kindly181 feeling, and a consequent "taboo on tenderness." The psycho-analysts themselves, he argues, were deeply influenced by the prevailing182 prejudice, and by it they were sometimes led into false reasoning. Suttie points out that the infantile attitude is not, strictly speaking, egotistical, since it does not discriminate183 between self and not-self. As soon as this discrimination does begin to occur, as soon as the distinction is made between "me" and "you," genuine tenderness toward the mother emerges along with genuine egotism.
If this analysis is correct, then the orthodox Freudian theory is in error, and moral experience must be derived from the conflict between tenderness and egotism. Tenderness is not merely a kind of "conditioned egotism" but a direct "espousal" of the active needs of another individual, an "espousal" which is of the same primary order as the "espousal" of one's own needs, though, of course, generally much less constant and vigorous.
The Ethical Sceptic, however, may circumvent109 this criticism. He may grant that tenderness is a psychologically primary impulse, and yet insist that this fact has no bearing on ethics. Citing the ethnological argument, he may say that tenderness is simply a response which has survival value in social organisms. It is merely the affective or emotional side of sociality. The fact that individuals who do not feel it are censured184 by society means only that society condemns185 reactions that are socially harmful.
True, but more must be said. We must remember once more the fundamental criticism which was made against the analytic method. We must not too readily assume that, because the method has succeeded so well in physical science, therefore it is infallible in psychology, and particularly in the study of the more subtle reaches of human experience. If we use it we must continually check it by reference to the actual experience which it is claiming to explain, so as to be sure that it really is explaining that and not something else, connected with or like that, but essentially distinct. It is notorious that many of those who have keen sensibility in the most developed spheres of human experience, in literature, art, the appreciation186 of personality, and in moral perception, find the psycho-analytical account of these experiences ludicrously inadequate187. To them it seems that the Ethical Sceptic never really apprehends188 the experience that he undertakes to explain; or that, if he does apprehend88 it, he allows his clear vision of it to be obscured in the interest of a theory. He attends to, and correctly explains in terms of his science, certain aspects of its growth, yet completely misses the nerve of the matter.
Roughly, what he does is this. He traces the growth of moral customs from certain primitive origins, and claims that he has completely accounted for morality. If he could have divested189 himself of his prejudice for analysis, if he could have faithfully observed the activity itself without preconceptions, he would have realised that, whatever the historical origins of it, in its fully developed form it included something different in kind from its primitive sources, in fact, that a genuine novelty had somewhere emerged. He would allow for a gradual awakening and refinement191 of moral sensibility from the infant's earliest precarious tenderness, or the tribe's primitive social cohesion192, to the saint's perception of the absolute goodness of love.
v. Ethical Scepticism: Logical Positivism
(a) The Claims of the Logical Positivists
(a) The Claims of the Logical Positivists — A still more radical kind of ethical scepticism can be derived from Logical Positivism. The argument runs as follows. Ethical statements cannot be verified in any sort of sense-experience. Therefore they are meaningless. The fundamental ethical concepts are not really concepts at all but pseudo-concepts. They do not say anything; they merely evince approval or disapproval193. And these are simply feelings, facts in the speaker's mind, unrelated to any objective ethical facts or principles. The statement "X is good" does not even say something about one's own feelings, since it expresses no real proposition. It is merely an emotional response, like a cry of delight.
It may be objected,that, if ethical statements were really meaningless, we should not be able to dispute about questions of value. If they are mere cries of approval and disapproval, if they are not really statements at all, if they do not mean something intelligible about a common or public object, there can be no disputing about the truth of their meaning. Yet seemingly we do dispute a great deal about moral questions.
To this objection the Logical Positivist replies as follows. The truth is that we never do actually dispute about questions of value. When we think we are doing so, we are really either making noises which, though composed of meaningful words, are as wholes mere meaningless noises of approval and disapproval; or else we are disputing about questions not of value but of fact. If one man says that stealing is bad, and another contradicts him, the ensuing argument always consists of a dispute as to what stealing really is. Each hopes to show the other that he is wrong about the facts. Each believes that, if his opponent could see the facts as he does himself, the two of them would at once feel the same approval or disapproval (or indifference) about them. Very often the hope is justified, since we are all constituted much alike in many important respects. But sometimes the dispute does not end in agreement. Disputants who have been nurtured194 in very different traditions may find that the discussion ends in a deadlock195. That is, though they are both considering the same facts, they feel differently about them. And there the matter ends, however much more talking there may be. Each probably charges the other with having an undeveloped or distorted moral sense. According to Logical Positivism, this kind of situation arises because ethical statements, though they are. worded as if they were statements about fact, are really meaningless, like grunts196 of pleasure and disgust. There comes a point when the disputants merely, so to speak, grunt197 louder and louder at each other.
If this theory is true, it follows that there can be no such thing as an ethical science, a study of objective good and bad. All that there can be is a psychology of morals, a study of the ways in which people do, as a matter of fact, feel approval and disapproval.
(b) Criticism of Logical Positivism on Ethics — It is obviously true that ethical statements cannot be verified in sense-experience. There is no conceivable kind of sense-experience that could afford verification of the statement, "murder is wrong." But it is a mistake to suppose that therefore the statement is meaningless, and a mere grunt of disapproval, if by "disapproval" is meant a subjective state which has no intention beyond itself. As a matter of fact, "disapproval" is the right word for the matter, since it has essentially an ethical significance. Of course, it is very difficult to say precisely what it is that we mean by disapproval in the strict moral sense. Indeed, "disapproval" and "approval" are probably, as Professor Moore has pointed out, strictly indefinable, like "red." But to suppose that, because their meaning is unverifiable in sense-experience, therefore they are meaningless is as grave a refusal to face the facts as the priests' refusal to watch Galileo drop weights from a tower. We all know quite well that we do mean something by these words, even though we find it extremely difficult to say what we mean. Some Ethical Sceptics reluctantly concede that we do mean something; but they insist that we mean merely, "I like X, and I wish all men did." But this is not enough. Rightly or wrongly we mean something more than this. And the something is in some way concerned with what X is and what any normally developed mind cannot but feel about such a thing as X. When we say, for instance, that murder (the destruction of human life for private ends) is wrong, we mean at least "Murder is such that (or contains an element which is such that) any mind capable of apprehending murder accurately cannot but condemn it." Murder is such that, and mind is such that, mind must condemn murder when it realises what murder is. But the word "condemn" probably itself means the identical indefinable thing meant by "disapproval."
According to Logical Positivism, these moral statements are not merely false but meaningless, because not verifiable in sense-experience. But the Logical Positivist should recognise that they can be verified (i.e. put to the test) in another kind of experience, namely moral experience. That is, one can go round telling people precisely what one means by "murder," helping them to imagine it accurately, and if possible enabling them to watch a murder or two (not so difficult to-day); and one can demand what they feel about it. In nine cases out of ten they will reply that they "disapprove198" of murder, in the universal sense above described. The small minority who failed to give this reaction might have to have their imaginations aided still further. It might be necessary to start murdering the murder-apathetic himself, so as to clear his mind of moral perversion200 or of the false theory of Ethical Scepticism. Probably not more than one per cent. would fail to be enlightened before their death.
But the ground for the assertion that murder is in the universal moral sense wrong is not merely inductive, not merely the fact that most people do condemn it. The claim is made that any mind that is sufficiently201 developed to see murder as it really is must necessarily condemn it. And to verify this claim it is enough for anyone, who is morally neither blind nor perverted202, to contemplate203 murder as clearly as possible and see for himself that this is so. Moral truth is in one respect like arithmetical truth. To recognise the universal truth that 2+2 = 4 it is necessary only to see one concrete example of it, say, two marbles added to two marbles. Similarly, to recognise the universal truth that murder is wrong we have only to contemplate one concrete example of it. That is, contemplating204 one example of it, we affirm that, murder being such as it is, any conscious being who sees it as it is must necessarily condemn it. The affirmation may be false, but it is not meaningless. Nor, as a matter of fact, is it unverifiable in direct experience (though not in sense-experience), for you have only to get a clear idea of murder to see that this is so.
Consider for a moment a case of intuited good instead of intuited evil. The mutual205 awareness206 and mutual valuing of two persons is experienced by lovers as intrinsically good, as something which any conscious being who recognises it for what it is must necessarily prize and applaud, because it is experienced as a notable fulfilling of the knowing-feeling-willing capacity 'which is the essence of "a conscious being."
To all this the Logical Positivist will reply that the universality and necessity of these moral judgments are sheer illusion. We have no right, he will say, to read all this into our mere private feelings of liking207 and disliking. To this the only possible answer is that he must look into his experience a little more closely and without bias in favour of a theory. He may then discover that he has ignored an essential feature of it.
Perhaps he will then fall back on the contention that, after all, love is not universally applauded nor murder universally condemned208. As for murder, many people to-day glory in it. What right have we to accept the verdict of the one party and reject that of the other? It is all very well to claim that the condemners of murder are more developed, more enlightened, more aware; but do we call them so for any more cogent reason than that they agree with us, about murder and other matters?
To this we must make a twofold reply. First, of the many who justify209 murder, most "know not what they do," or else are perverted and blinded by special conditions. Second, the statement, "Murder is wrong," is supported not only by the intuitive disapproval experienced by all normal minds, but also by a more general principle (itself founded on intuition), namely, "Living is good"; or, more accurately, "The free performing of the multifarious activities known as living is good." The most developed, the most awakened210 minds of all lands and ages have emphatically condemned murder. If Logical Positivism denies that there is any valid211 distinction between the mentally less developed and more developed, we must reply that, though the concept may be misused212, it is a concept of great service, which is used effectively every day in our relations with one another. Moreover, it is a concept which can be defined objectively. A mind is "more developed" in which cognition is more accurate, penetrating213, and comprehensive, and affection and conation' more appropriate to the mind's whole situation. As between one mind and another we may often disagree as to which is in fact more developed in this manner, but in many more cases we decide quite easily. The concept of developed mentality214 is a generalisation both from scientific and from intuitive experiences. Of the concept itself we have seldom any doubt. Of this I shall have more to say in the next chapter.
vi. The Practical Upshot
I shall now draw together the threads of the foregoing discussion. In the first place, then, we must recognise that Intuitionism is right in its fundamental contention. "Good" is a unique objective character which we intuitively apprehend as "ought to be," and "ought to be striven for." When we clearly see a possibility of good we recognise that any being who can strive for it ought to do so. This is the fundamental unanalysable moral experience. No theory which does less than justice to it is to be accepted.
On the other hand, in the first instance we recognise this character of "ought to be" only as a character of our own free activity. It constitutes a motive for our action because in the first instance it is experienced as a character of our own activity.
Our powers of recognising possibilities of good and bad vary immensely from the level of simple bodily appetite to the level of saintliness. Even bodily appetite, I should say, includes a moral aspect. When I am hungry I do not merely crave215 food; I feel that I ought to be fed. My hunger, I feel, constitutes a claim on all beings who know what hunger is and that this creature is hungry. This moral aspect of one's own bodily appetites is obscured by traditional views of morality; but for those who can divest190 themselves of the tradition it is discoverable. In the case of another's hunger I do not recognise the moral claim unless either I imagine it very vividly216 or I have already formed moral theories about it.
Moral judgments may conflict with one another. Two conflicting moral judgments cannot both be right. This does not mean that the moral intuition itself is subject to error, but merely that we may fail to disentangle the intuition itself from irrelevances, or may unconsciously pretend to have an intuition when we actually have it not. The intuition itself is infallible; but we can never be sure that we have it, or that we have not confused it, or expressed it falsely in words. In the same way sense-experience is infallible, but we may unconsciously pretend to have it when we have, it not, and we may misdescribe it, and so on.
What kinds of things, then, are characterised by this unique quality of "good," and what by "bad"? In the most general sense, only one kind of thing is good, namely, free activity, and only one kind of thing is bad, namely, frustration. But we are complex beings, capable of many kinds of action and frustration. The full answer to the question, then, depends on the answer to the question, What kinds of activity are most fulfilling to our active nature? This question is to be satisfactorily answered only by minds that are in two manners qualified217 to answer it. They must have reached a fairly high level of moral sensibility; but also they must have a fair degree of intellectual acuity218. What sort of an answer do such people as a matter of fact give? No doubt their answers conflict; but is it not true that, on the whole, apart from idiosyncrasies peculiar to their personality or their social conditions, and apart from differences of verbal formulation, which may be very serious, they show remarkable219 agreement? Whatever else may be intuited as good intrinsically, one thing at least is so intuited. One thing at least we all, in our most lucid220 moments, recognise as good. But though in some degree this thing is familiar to us all, it is difficult to name adequately or to describe. Let us call it, for the moment, very vaguely221, the free functioning and full development of the capacity for knowing-feeling-striving; or, since individuality and community are inextricably mingled, the fulfilling of the capacity for personality-in-community. Need I say that the word "knowing" in the phrase "knowing-feeling-striving" must not be taken to mean merely intellectual knowing? It must include every kind of awareness or cognition.
Many kinds of things, of course, are sometimes judged good. But of most of them it can be maintained that they are not intuited as good, in the same sense as that in which we intuit free activity as good. For the word "good," as we have seen, is ambiguous. It sometimes refers to an activity in relation to some object and sometimes to the object itself. Thus, when we say that a picture is good, what we actually intuit as good in the one sense of the word is the picture, but in the other sense what we intuit as good is what we can do with the picture. To take a very different case, the sadist may judge that torturing is good, intrinsically. No doubt he does intuit it as good in so far as it is a fulfilling of some obscure need of his own personality, but he does not intuit (though he may declare) that the thwarting of the other person's personality is good intrinsically.
It may be objected that such phrases as "free functioning" and "fulfilling of capacity" are too vague to be useful, and that they obscure the great difference between the activities that have a genuine moral aspect and those which have not. There is a world of difference, it may be said, between such morally indifferent activities as eating and such morally desirable activities as charity.
It is true that there is a world of difference between such activities. But the difference is not such that one kind has a moral aspect and the other not. Of course we must not fall into the error of hedonism, and suppose that by "fulfilment" we mean always one and the same experienced quality, namely, pleasure, which can be simply measured by its intensity. Pleasure, no doubt, is the abstracted sense of fulfilment, or "how fulfilment feels"; but it is not simply identical with fulfilment. At any given time one's fulfilment as a whole, as a personality, may simply not be open to consciousness. Consequently, conscious fulfilment (pleasure) may be a very misleading measure of fulfilment. Under the spell of a minor199 conscious fulfilment we may overlook the fact that this minor fulfilment entails222 a major frustration beyond the present reach of consciousness. Indeed, habitual223 indulgence in minor pleasures may render for ever impossible a major fulfilment which, had it occurred, would have been recognised as more worth while than those pleasures which were chosen. We must certainly allow different orders of fulfilment on different planes of mental development. And the final measure of the relative worth of activities on the different planes must be intuitive. But the verdict of intuition is not valid unless both the activities to be judged are fully open to conscious inspection224, and unless the judgment is not warped225 by the pressure of grave frustrations226. It is important to realise that, though biological and psychological theory may afford a useful elucidator227 of the relations of mental levels, the final test must be intuition. We must boldly affirm that to the developed mind the more developed activities do afford a deeper or more comprehensive fulfilment than the primitive activities; and that the former are intuited as in some sense more truly the goal of living than the primitive activities. But this statement needs much more careful discussion than is possible here.
In the next chapter I shall enlarge upon the subject of the more developed human activities. For the moment it is enough to say that they are those which psychological analysis reveals as the most complex, most subtle, most integrated activities. They are, in fact, the most penetrating and comprehensive modes of knowing-feeling-striving. They include the most precise self-awareness, the most delicate personal intercourse, the most accurate social awareness, the most subtle practical and theoretical intelligence, the most creative art, and, I believe, certain experiences and activities which may be called mystical.
We have already examined the practical and theoretical intelligence. We shall examine personal and social experience, and at the close of our enquiry we shall consider mystical experience. Aesthetic experience, the kind of experience with which art is concerned, we must leave untouched, owing to lack of space. Aesthetic theory is so confused that no adequate brief discussion of it is possible. I will say only that, in my view, art is to be explained in terms of symbolic228 satisfactions — personal, social, and perhaps mystical; that there is no need to introduce a unique kind of aesthetic value, to be called "beauty" or "significant form."
One point about primitive and developed activities must be emphasised. We must distinguish between the urgency of the primitive activities and the ultimacy of the developed activities. In starvation the urgency of eating eclipses all else; but a human life in which there were no activity superior to eating would be a poor thing.
On the other hand, a life in which the primitive activities were regarded solely229 as necessary means to the higher activities would be not merely physically230 but also mentally and spiritually unwholesome. For the primitive activities, such as eating, bodily exercise, and physical sexual activity, can afford not only a purely physical but also a spiritual refreshment231 and elucidation232. So to speak, the developed human mind can actually discover more in these activities than the animal or child can discover. For the child and the animal they may be more intense; but the well-grown adult, unhampered by puritanical233 taboos and unspoiled by excess, experiences them with more discrimination and penetration234. Seeing them in relation to one another and to the rest of his experience, he may discover in them a significance which would not otherwise be revealed, a significance which may be called spiritual.
The word "spiritual" is dangerously ambiguous and emotive. I use it to refer solely to those activities which the developed mind intuits as expressing the most developed part of human nature, as being, in fact, at the upper limit of human capacity.
For each individual there is implied in his nature as a knowing, feeling, and striving thing an ideal of personal fulfilment. For him what is desirable, what is good, whether he consciously wills it or not, is that he should know, feel, and strive as fully as possible, as coherently as possible, as creatively as possible. If he recognises this fact about his nature, and if he has it in him to feel appropriately toward it (that is, if he really is a moral being), he ought to strive to realise his potentiality to the full. He ought to seek to know the world around him as truly as possible through whatever channels of experience are open to him. He ought to seek to correlate truly all the diverse modes of his experience. He ought to seek to prevent his understanding from being distorted by the influence of cravings, conscious or unconscious. He ought to seek to feel and strive appropriately to the world that he experiences. For instance, he ought not to let self-regard distract him from the service of the community. He ought to seek to "espouse235" all good causes in just proportion. Not only so, but, so far as he can, he ought to strive not merely to foster the vital capacities of himself and others but also actually to evoke236 in himself and others new capacities of higher order. Here lies his opportunity of creative action.
The foregoing statement of the personal ideal is, of course, extremely abstract. For any particular person, with particular equipment and in particular circumstances, the direction will be something much more concrete and limited.
Practical morality is in the main concerned with the relations between human beings. Whatever the origins of the sense of obligation, in the developed mind it is bound up with two features of experience, namely, sympathy and rationality. The fulfilment of another individual personally known to the subject himself is easily intuited as good, and his frustration as bad. Moral development involves, among other things, the widening of the scope of spontaneous sympathy to embrace not merely personal beloveds, not merely companions whose character affords fulfilment to one's own personal needs, but even alien beings who are known to be in need.
Moral development also involves something more than this expansion of spontaneous sympathy. The rational impulse, which is also the impulse for objectivity in thought and action, is very relevant to morality. That which in oneself is intuited as exercising a moral claim on others for help, namely, "my personal need," exercises that claim wherever it occurs, whether or not I have close acquaintance with it or merely learn of it, whether or not I have enough of sensibility and imagination to feel spontaneous sympathy for it. On the strength of my own experience of my own needs and my experience of obligation toward particular individuals other than myself, I have formed a generalisation to this effect, and I recognise an obligation to make my conduct conform to the general good.
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shunned
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logic
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physicist
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| n.物理学家，研究物理学的人 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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judgments
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utilitarian
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aesthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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motives
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Christians
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| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
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11
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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12
sensory
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| adj.知觉的，感觉的，知觉器官的 | |
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13
fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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14
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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15
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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16
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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17
attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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18
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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19
miser
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| n.守财奴，吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
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20
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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21
outgrow
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| vt.长大得使…不再适用；成长得不再要 | |
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22
systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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23
derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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24
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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25
binds
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| v.约束( bind的第三人称单数 )；装订；捆绑；（用长布条）缠绕 | |
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26
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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27
ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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28
ethics
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| n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准 | |
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29
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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30
embody
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| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
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31
obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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32
flux
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| n.流动；不断的改变 | |
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33
platonic
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| adj.精神的；柏拉图（哲学）的 | |
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34
unduly
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| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
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35
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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36
subsisting
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| v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的现在分词 ) | |
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37
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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38
implicit
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| a.暗示的，含蓄的，不明晰的，绝对的 | |
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39
extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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40
detriment
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| n.损害；损害物，造成损害的根源 | |
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41
rein
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| n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治 | |
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42
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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43
materialism
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| n.［哲］唯物主义，唯物论；物质至上 | |
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44
stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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45
thwarting
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| 阻挠( thwart的现在分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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46
attains
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的第三人称单数 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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47
favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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48
favourableness
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49
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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50
calculus
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| n.微积分；结石 | |
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51
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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52
needy
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| adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的 | |
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53
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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54
riddled
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| adj.布满的；充斥的；泛滥的v.解谜，出谜题(riddle的过去分词形式) | |
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55
starry
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| adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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56
imperative
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| n.命令，需要；规则；祈使语气；adj.强制的；紧急的 | |
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57
maxim
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| n.格言，箴言 | |
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58
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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59
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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60
dispositions
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| 安排( disposition的名词复数 )； 倾向； （财产、金钱的）处置； 气质 | |
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61
frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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62
irrational
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| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
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63
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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64
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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65
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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66
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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67
cogent
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| adj.强有力的，有说服力的 | |
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68
awakening
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| n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的 | |
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69
perversity
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| n.任性；刚愎自用 | |
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70
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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71
immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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72
prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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73
evolutionary
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| adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的 | |
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74
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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75
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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76
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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77
stagnated
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| v.停滞，不流动，不发展( stagnate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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78
advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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79
collapse
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|
| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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80
bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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81
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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82
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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83
entity
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| n.实体，独立存在体，实际存在物 | |
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84
systematically
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| adv.有系统地 | |
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85
postulate
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| n.假定，基本条件；vt.要求，假定 | |
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86
criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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87
apprehending
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的现在分词 )； 理解 | |
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88
apprehend
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| vt.理解，领悟，逮捕，拘捕，忧虑 | |
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89
exponent
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| n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂 | |
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90
onus
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| n.负担；责任 | |
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91
accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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92
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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93
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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94
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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95
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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96
radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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97
prominence
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| n.突出；显著；杰出；重要 | |
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98
subjectivity
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| n.主观性（主观主义） | |
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99
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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100
subjective
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| a.主观(上)的，个人的 | |
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101
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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102
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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103
superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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104
psychology
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| n.心理，心理学，心理状态 | |
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105
anthropology
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| n.人类学 | |
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106
gregarious
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| adj.群居的，喜好群居的 | |
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107
gregariousness
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| 集群性；簇聚性 | |
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108
circumventing
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| v.设法克服或避免（某事物），回避( circumvent的现在分词 )；绕过，绕行，绕道旅行 | |
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109
circumvent
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| vt.环绕，包围；对…用计取胜，智胜 | |
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110
conformity
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| n.一致，遵从，顺从 | |
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111
craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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112
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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113
infringe
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| v.违反，触犯，侵害 | |
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114
aspiration
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| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
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115
censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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116
perpetuated
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| vt.使永存（perpetuate的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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117
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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118
archaic
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| adj.(语言、词汇等)古代的，已不通用的 | |
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119
specious
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| adj.似是而非的；adv.似是而非地 | |
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120
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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121
glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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122
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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123
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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124
complexity
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| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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125
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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126
civilisation
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| n.文明，文化，开化，教化 | |
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127
vestiges
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| 残余部分( vestige的名词复数 )； 遗迹； 痕迹； 毫不 | |
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128
dominant
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| adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因 | |
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129
feudal
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| adj.封建的，封地的，领地的 | |
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130
precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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131
sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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132
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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133
permissible
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| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
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134
obligatory
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| adj.强制性的，义务的，必须的 | |
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135
underlying
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| adj.在下面的，含蓄的，潜在的 | |
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136
sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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137
industriousness
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| n.勤奋 | |
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138
glorify
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| vt.颂扬，赞美，使增光，美化 | |
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139
martial
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| adj.战争的，军事的，尚武的，威武的 | |
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140
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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141
prudence
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| n.谨慎，精明，节俭 | |
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142
reliability
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| n.可靠性，确实性 | |
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143
oligarchy
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| n.寡头政治 | |
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144
toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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145
analytic
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| adj.分析的，用分析方法的 | |
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146
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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147
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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148
justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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149
regularities
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| 规则性( regularity的名词复数 )； 正规； 有规律的事物； 端正 | |
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150
conclusively
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| adv.令人信服地，确凿地 | |
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151
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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152
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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153
repression
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| n.镇压，抑制，抑压 | |
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154
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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155
mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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156
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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157
taboo
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| n.禁忌，禁止接近，禁止使用；adj.禁忌的；v.禁忌，禁制，禁止 | |
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158
taboos
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| 禁忌( taboo的名词复数 )； 忌讳； 戒律； 禁忌的事物（或行为） | |
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159
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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160
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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161
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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162
defender
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| n.保卫者，拥护者，辩护人 | |
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163
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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164
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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165
restrictions
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| 约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则） | |
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166
infringement
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| n.违反；侵权 | |
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167
contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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168
hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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169
tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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170
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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171
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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172
constituent
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| n.选民；成分，组分；adj.组成的，构成的 | |
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173
infancy
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| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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174
sketchy
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| adj.写生的，写生风格的，概略的 | |
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175
smacks
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| 掌掴（声）( smack的名词复数 )； 海洛因； （打的）一拳； 打巴掌 | |
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176
Vogue
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| n.时髦，时尚；adj.流行的 | |
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177
cogency
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| n.说服力；adj.有说服力的 | |
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178
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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179
misgivings
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| n.疑虑，担忧，害怕；疑虑，担心，恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 )；疑惧 | |
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180
follower
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| n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒 | |
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181
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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182
prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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183
discriminate
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| v.区别，辨别，区分；有区别地对待 | |
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184
censured
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| v.指责，非难，谴责( censure的过去式 ) | |
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185
condemns
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| v.（通常因道义上的原因而）谴责( condemn的第三人称单数 )；宣判；宣布…不能使用；迫使…陷于不幸的境地 | |
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186
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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187
inadequate
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| adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的 | |
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188
apprehends
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| 逮捕，拘押( apprehend的第三人称单数 )； 理解 | |
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189
divested
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| v.剥夺( divest的过去式和过去分词 )；脱去（衣服）；2。从…取去…；1。（给某人）脱衣服 | |
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190
divest
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| v.脱去，剥除 | |
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191
refinement
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| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
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192
cohesion
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| n.团结，凝结力 | |
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193
disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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194
nurtured
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| 养育( nurture的过去式和过去分词 )； 培育； 滋长； 助长 | |
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195
deadlock
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| n.僵局，僵持 | |
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196
grunts
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| （猪等）作呼噜声( grunt的第三人称单数 )； （指人）发出类似的哼声； 咕哝着说； 石鲈 | |
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197
grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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198
disapprove
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| v.不赞成，不同意，不批准 | |
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199
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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200
perversion
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| n.曲解；堕落；反常 | |
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201
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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202
perverted
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| adj.不正当的v.滥用( pervert的过去式和过去分词 )；腐蚀；败坏；使堕落 | |
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203
contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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204
contemplating
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| 深思，细想，仔细考虑( contemplate的现在分词 )； 注视，凝视； 考虑接受（发生某事的可能性）； 深思熟虑，沉思，苦思冥想 | |
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205
mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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206
awareness
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| n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智 | |
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207
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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208
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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209
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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210
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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211
valid
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| adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的 | |
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212
misused
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| v.使用…不当( misuse的过去式和过去分词 )；把…派作不正当的用途；虐待；滥用 | |
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213
penetrating
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| adj.（声音）响亮的，尖锐的adj.（气味）刺激的adj.（思想）敏锐的，有洞察力的 | |
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214
mentality
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| n.心理，思想，脑力 | |
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215
crave
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| vt.渴望得到，迫切需要，恳求，请求 | |
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216
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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217
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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218
acuity
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| n.敏锐，（疾病的）剧烈 | |
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219
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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220
lucid
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| adj.明白易懂的，清晰的，头脑清楚的 | |
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221
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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222
entails
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| 使…成为必要( entail的第三人称单数 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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223
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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224
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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225
warped
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| adj.反常的；乖戾的；（变）弯曲的；变形的v.弄弯，变歪( warp的过去式和过去分词 )；使（行为等）不合情理，使乖戾， | |
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226
frustrations
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| 挫折( frustration的名词复数 )； 失败； 挫败； 失意 | |
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227
elucidator
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| n.说明者，阐释者 | |
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228
symbolic
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| adj.象征性的，符号的，象征主义的 | |
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229
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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230
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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231
refreshment
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| n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点 | |
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232
elucidation
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| n.说明，阐明 | |
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233
puritanical
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| adj.极端拘谨的；道德严格的 | |
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234
penetration
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| n.穿透，穿人，渗透 | |
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235
espouse
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| v.支持，赞成，嫁娶 | |
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236
evoke
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| vt.唤起，引起，使人想起 | |
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