A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of EvolutionWilliams, Cora May
Philosophy
A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution
Williams, Cora May
Ethics, Evolutionary
Dr. Ree's later book, "The Origin of Conscience" ("Die Entstehung des
Gewissens," 1885), does not add anything distinctly new in theory to
this first book; it is rather noticeable for what it omits of the
pessimism of the earlier book, for a more moderate, thoughtful, and less
assertive tone, than for additional theories or even much further
elaboration of the old theories, except as regards the derivation of the
Sense of Justice. It traces the savage custom of the revenge of death
through its displacement by the payment of blood-money, up to the final
substitution of state punishment. Punishment does not grow out of
revenge, but succeeds it. It is not revenge, though the desire that the
guilty may be punished and the desire for revenge may be mixed, in some
cases. Pain, not the Sense of Justice, drives the savage to revenge.
Punishment does not grow out of the Sense of Justice, but the latter out
of the former. The interference of the state with the revenge of the
individual is at first a mediation between the two parties for the
maintenance of peace in the interest of the community; later, the state
arrives at a method of punishment for the purpose of prevention.
Hume's theory of the origin of religion has been confirmed by
Anthropology. The savage sees in natural phenomena the action of living
beings endowed with mental faculties like his own, and he gradually
comes to transfer this action to beings not in, but, according to his
new idea, behind, phenomena. The gods of primitive religions are moral
only as the peoples whose gods they are, are moral. As society
progresses, religion falls behind, and a new interpretation of old
doctrines must be introduced in order to bring it up to the later
standard. Then the gods, as moral with the morality of this later date,
are imagined as commanding the later standard, and to the fear of
punishment by the state is added, as a preventive force, that of the
punishment of the gods. The gods command what men command, forbid what
men forbid. The God of the Old Testament, Jahveh, was, like Zeus, a
nature-god, and took revenge as men did. When a later date demanded a
standard of greater humanity, Christ came, and he represented the God
of the Old Testament, no longer as revengeful and passionate, but as
possessing the attributes of sympathy which he felt in himself. The
later standard of the New Testament takes into consideration motives as
well as deeds, and commands positively as well as forbids. But the God
of the New Testament is not wholly love; if his love is unreturned, he
becomes angry, like men.
The Categoric Imperative in the individual is merely the result of his
individual education. Conscience alone accomplishes little; other
motives than the desire to do right--fear of punishment, etc.--are
stronger. Nothing is, in itself, good or bad, but only so far as it is
useful or harmful.
Sympathy is to some degree innate,--how it arose we cannot say; but it
has been preserved by natural selection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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