1. Their subject-matter implies an incomplete situation. This
incompleteness is not psychical. Something is "there," but what is
there does not constitute the entire objective situation. _As_ there,
it requires something else. Only after this something else has been
supplied will the given coincide with the full subject-matter. This
consideration has an important bearing upon the conception of the
indeterminate and contingent. It is sometimes assumed (both by
adherents and by opponents) that the validity of these notions entails
that the _given_ is itself indeterminate--which appears to be
nonsense. The logical implication is that of a subject-matter as yet
_unterminated_, unfinished, or not wholly given. The implication is of
future things. Moreover, the incompleteness is not personal. I mean by
this that the situation is not confined _within_ the one making the
judgment; the practical judgment is neither exclusively nor primarily
about one's self. On the contrary, it is a judgment about one's self
only as it is a judgment about the situation in which one is included,
and in which a multitude of other factors external to self are
included. The contrary assumption is so constantly made about moral
judgments that this statement must appear dogmatic. But surely the
prima facie case is that when I judge that I should not give money to
the street beggar I am judging the nature of an objective situation,
and that the conclusion about myself is governed by the proposition
about the situation in which I happen to be included. The full,
complex proposition includes the beggar, social conditions and
consequences, a charity organization society, etc., on exactly the
same footing as it contains myself. Aside from the fact that it seems
impossible to defend the "objectivity" of moral propositions on any
other ground, we may at least point to the fact that judgments of
policy, whether made about ourselves or some other agent, are
certainly judgments of a _situation_ which is temporarily unfinished.
"Now is a good time for me to buy certain railway bonds" is a judgment
about myself only because it is primarily a judgment about hundreds of
factors wholly external to myself. If the genuine existence of such
propositions be admitted, the only question about moral judgments is
whether or no they are cases of practical judgments as the latter have
been defined--a question of utmost importance for moral theory, but
not of crucial import for our logical discussion.
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