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
"But the view for which I contend is, that Morality properly
so-called--the science of right conduct--has for its object to determine
how and why certain modes of conduct are detrimental, and certain other
modes beneficial. These good and bad results cannot be accidental, but
must be necessary consequences of the constitution of things, and I
conceive it to be the business of Moral Science to deduce from the laws
of life and the conditions of existence what kinds of action necessarily
tend to produce happiness and what kinds to produce unhappiness. Having
done this, its deductions are to be recognized as laws of conduct; and
are to be conformed to irrespective of a direct estimation of happiness
or misery.
"Perhaps an analogy will most clearly show my meaning. During its early
stages, planetary astronomy consisted of nothing more than accumulated
observations respecting the positions and motions of the sun and
planets; from which accumulated observations it came by and by to be
empirically predicted, with an approach to truth, that certain of the
heavenly bodies would have certain positions at certain times. But the
modern science of planetary astronomy consists of deductions from the
law of gravitation--deductions showing why the celestial bodies
necessarily occupy certain places at certain times. Now the kind of
relation which thus exists between ancient and modern astronomy is
analogous to the kind of relation which, I conceive, exists between the
Expediency Morality and Moral Science properly so-called. And the
objection which I have to the current Utilitarianism is, that it
recognizes no more developed form of morality--does not see that it has
reached but the initial stage of Moral Science.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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