Conscience & Fanaticism: An Essay on Moral ValuesPitt-Rivers, George Henry Lane Fox
Philosophy
Conscience & Fanaticism: An Essay on Moral Values
Pitt-Rivers, George Henry Lane Fox
Conscience; Ethics; Fanaticism
Any investigation of the phenomenon of moral conduct, and of its
interpretation, brings us face to face with two sets of conflicting
theories. These may, for convenience, be roughly divided into the two
principal schools of thought which have been termed respectively the
"Moral Sense" or "Intuitive" schools and the "Rationalistic schools of
ethics." Certain writers in their search for the springs of moral
conduct have attempted to place the issue between Naturalism or
Determinism (by no means synonymous or necessarily connected) on the one
side, and Theism on the other[13]; and, in their eagerness to discredit
the former to the advantage of the latter, imagine they demolish
Determinism (at any rate in the ethical sphere) by "pushing it to its
logical conclusion" and by showing that it "has connected completely and
indissolubly, as far as observation can carry us, mind with matter; it
has established a functional relation to exist between every fact of
thinking, willing or feeling, on the one side, and some molecular
change in the body on the other side, and man, with all his ways and
works, is simply a part of nature, and can, by no device of thought, be
detached from or set above it."[14]
What, after all, is involved in the acceptance of such a conclusion?
What is there to fear? To concede this, it is thought, would mean to
relegate man to the position of a mere "automaton," freed from
"accountability to God, responsibility to man, and the fears of
conscience."
So far from ridding man of responsibility, the clear recognition by him
of the true nature of his environment and antecedents, the laws by which
they influence him, and his inherent capacity of resistance--in other
words, the two processes observable in the world, action contrary to,
and action along, the line of least resistance[15]--does, on the
contrary, greatly increase his responsibility of action and his power to
know himself.
Is not mind and matter subject to the same law? Do they not react to the
same God? What matter, then, if we adopt the formula of Pampsychism and
assert that "all individual things are animated albeit in divers
degrees"? or endorse the conclusion of Professor James Ward, who "finds
no ground for separating organic life from psychical life"? and
continues: "All life is experience. We cannot therefore assume that
experience has no part in the building up of the organism, and only
begins when viable organism is already there."[16]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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