A Handbook of Ethical TheoryFullerton, George Stuart
Philosophy
A Handbook of Ethical Theory
Fullerton, George Stuart
Ethics
He must ask aid from the biologist, the psychologist, the anthropologist.
They help him to a comprehension of what man is; and, hence, of what it
is desirable that man should strive to do. But these men seldom come to
the moralist for advice. They appear to be able to work without his help.
There are, however, other sciences in which the moralist feels that he
has more of a right to meddle, however independent they may regard
themselves.
Take, for example, politics or economics, or the very modern and
rudimentary science of eugenics. The man who cultivates political science
may know much more than do most moralists about states and their forms of
organization; about legislative, executive and judicial functions; about
the probable effects of the centralization or decentralization of
authority; about what may be expected, in a given case, from a
restriction or extension of the franchise; about the creation and
maintenance of a military establishment and the building up of an
efficient civil service. The economist may be a monster of learning and a
master in ingenuity on all problems touching the creation and
distribution of wealth.
But the political scientist and the economist, however able, share our
common humanity. A man's outlook is more or less apt to be bounded by the
limits of the science of his predilection. The several sciences, broader
or more specialized, rest, in the minds of most men, upon foundations
which are taken for granted. It is too much to expect that every sermon
should begin as far back as the Garden of Eden. "Practical" politics and
economics do not, as a rule, go so far back.
The transition from practical politics and economics to ethical problems
may be made at any time. No man was shrewder than Machiavelli, and the
moral sense of mankind has rebelled against him and made him a byword. A
state, desirous of maintaining itself, may palpably violate in its
institutions, inherited from the past, a social will grown more rational,
more conscious of its rights and more articulate. Then the appeal is made
to right and justice in other than the traditional forms. It may, in a
given instance, be wrong to create wealth; existing forms of its
distribution may be iniquitous. The ultimate arbiter in all such matters
must be the Ethical Man.
Human society is indefinitely complex. Many specialists must occupy
themselves with its problems. A technical question in this field may
always be carried over to moral ground. He who undertakes to make this
transition without having made a fairly thorough study of ethics appears
to be working in the dark. His assumptions have been questioned, or have
been abandoned. Who shall furnish him with a new basis for his special
science?
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