Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of EthicsDrake, Durant
Philosophy
Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of Ethics
Drake, Durant
Ethics
(3) Moreover, this definition, while an excellent DESCRIPTIONTION of
what morality in general is, is not a JUSTIFICATION of morality, does
not point to its ultimate raison d'etre. To all this organizing
activity we might say, Cui bono, for what good? WHY should we organize
our interests; why not deny them like the ascetics? The mere existence
of pushes, in this direction and that, affords no material for moral
judgment; a harmonizing of them would make a mathematical resultant,
but it would be of no superior WORTH. If there were no pleasure and
pain in life, it would not MATTER in the least whether the various
life forces were organized or not. In such a colorless world a unison
of human impulses would be as morally indifferent as the convergence
of tributary rivers or the formation of an organized solar system.
It is only, as we long ago pointed out, [Footnote: Cf. ante, p. 74 ]
when consciousness differentiates into its plus and minus values,
pleasure and pain, that a reason arises why any forces in the cosmos
should be thwarted or allowed free play. With the emergence of those
values, however, everything that affects them becomes significant.
If the complete transformation of our interests would make human life
brighter, fuller of plus values, such a radical alteration, rather
than a harmonization, would be our ideal. As it is, desire points
normally toward the really desirable; the direction of human welfare
lies, in general, along the line of our organic needs, of the avoidance
of clashes, of the mutual subordination and cooperation of natural
impulses. The principle of reason, of intelligence, is necessary in
morality to find this way of cooperation, this ultimate drift of need;
but without the potentiality of happiness chaos would be as good as
order, both within the individual soul and within the social group.
[Footnote: Plato realized this, and in the Philebus points out that
we cannot completely describe morality either in terms of pleasure-pain
or in terms of reason (or wisdom), the organizing principle. Both aspects
of morality are important. Cf, along this line, H. G. Lord, The Abuse
of Abstraction in Ethics, in the James memorial volume.] Do moral acts
always bring happiness somewhere? The ultimate justification of
morality the value of synthesizing our interests, lies in the happiness
men thereby attain. But there is one fundamental doubt that ever and
anon recurs the doubt whether, after all, actions that we agree in
calling virtuous always BRING happiness. If not, either our definition
of morality, or our universal judgment as to what is moral, would seem
to be in error. Perhaps morality is, after all, off the track, and
to be discarded.
(1) We must first lay aside cases of perverted conscience, acts which
are "subjectively moral," or conscientious, but not objectively best.
These cases we have already glanced at; they need be no stumbling
block.
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