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
It is difficult to say what support is rendered to practical Ethics by
the theory of Evolution. According to it, Ethics is a history and a
prediction; but failing the existence in any individual (as the result
of a growth) of the moral sense for which Evolution professes to
account, the prediction only applies to future generations; and it is
difficult to see that practical Ethics has for such a person any
intrinsic authority. And even if the moral sense, and social pressure
(which are respectively the intrinsic and the extrinsic authority, for
practical Ethics) are sufficient of themselves to enforce moral conduct,
then the understanding of how they both came to possess such a power of
command, lends them no additional authority, but rather tends, at first
sight, to detract from their sacred prestige. The confidence of the
philosopher is however soon restored, when he considers that despite the
failure of his theory to intellectually establish moral enforcements,
nevertheless, the great forces which have produced both the intrinsic
and the extrinsic ethical authorities are still at work, and must more
and more prevail. If these are natural growths the movement in the
hearts of men, and in societarian organization, will ever prevail over
and above all reasoning about them. Individual opposition and
restiveness will be levelled before the might of the advance. The
individual must obey or perish; indeed he must himself change and become
part of the coercive power.
Thus it will be found that the apprehension which Mr. Spencer expresses
in his preface, as to the loss of a controlling agency in the decay and
death of an older regulative system is not met by the establishment of a
new controlling agency which takes the place of the discarded authority,
but may be met by the fact disclosed in evolution, that whatever
authority men may recognise, nay, even if they do not recognise any, it
is all the same--they are part and parcel of an onward growth against
which it is useless to rebel. The moral authority is the conviction of
the inevitable. Thus evolution dispels the fear of a moral anarchy by
showing the necessity for the existence of present and future moral
order, ensured alike by extrinsic social organization, and by a no less
certain prevalence of intrinsic motives. Thus, though evolution lends
but little additional theoretical force to moral argument, it shows
forth the power of natural ethical authority, and declares with
convincing efficacy, "magna est veritas et prævalebit."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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