On Mr. Spencer's Data of EthicsGuthrie, Malcolm (Writer on Herbert Spencer)
Philosophy
On Mr. Spencer's Data of Ethics
Guthrie, Malcolm (Writer on Herbert Spencer)
Ethics, Evolutionary; Spencer, Herbert, 1820-1903. Data of ethics
Apparently all that is, is right. Equilibration does not recognise any
distinction as to the quality of actions. This distinction can be
explained by equilibration, but cannot be justified by it as a law for
future conduct, any more than any other incident of the course of
equilibration. If certain laws of living become established, then moving
equilibria capable of recognising this fact must act accordingly--they
must adapt themselves to the environment: but this does not prevent the
organism from adapting the environment to itself, if it can, by changing
it or overcoming it--this is merely a matter of equilibration. The law
of Biology will allow it to cope with an adverse environment in many
ways, namely, by conformity, by escape so as to preserve its
individuality, and by altering or overcoming the environment. If the
forces of the environment be powerful and omnipresent, then conformity
is the only resource. It is only a matter of superiority of force, and
the resulting conformity is merely a matter of equilibration. It is not
that equilibration lends any special sanctity or quality to certain
actions. Social pressure coerces individual pressure--the mutual
coercion of society is equilibration--the result of this equilibration,
whatever it is, is a variable Ethics. The recognition of great duties
and great faults, the facts of moral approbation and condemnation, the
phenomena of a private and public conscience are all explicable as
equilibrations: but since whatever is, is an equilibration, it is not
from the laws of equilibration that any established moral distinction or
obligation can be justified for guidance for a single day in advance.
There is no universality, either in place or time in Ethics thus viewed.
The justification of Ethics from the evolution point of view must be
sought on other grounds than in that of a cosmical equilibration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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