=1. What the Third Level Means.=--Complete morality is reached only when
the individual recognizes the right or chooses the good freely, devotes
himself heartily to its fulfillment, and seeks a progressive social
development in which every member of society shall share. The group
morality with its agencies of custom set up a standard, but one that was
corporate rather than personal. It approved and disapproved, that is it
had an idea of good, but this did not mean a good that was personally
valued. It enlisted its members, but it was by drill, by pleasure and
pain, and by habit, rather than by fully voluntary action. It secured
steadiness by habit and social pressure, rather than by choices built
into character. It maintained community of feeling and action, but of
the unconscious rather than the definitely social type. Finally it was
rather fitted to maintain a fixed order than to promote and safeguard
progress. Advance then must (1) substitute some rational method of
setting up standards and forming values, in place of habitual passive
acceptance; (2) secure voluntary and personal choice and interest,
instead of unconscious identification with the group welfare, or
instinctive and habitual response to group needs; (3) encourage at the
same time individual development and the demand that all shall share in
this development--the worth and happiness of the person and of _every_
person.
=2. Collisions Involved.=--Such an advance brings to consciousness two
collisions. The oppositions were there before, but they were not felt as
oppositions. So long as the man was fully with his group, or satisfied
with the custom, he would make no revolt. When the movement begins the
collisions are felt. These collisions are:
(1) The collision between the authority and interests of the group, and
the independence and private interests of the individual.
(2) The collision between order and progress, between habit and
reconstruction or reformation.
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