Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of EthicsDrake, Durant
Philosophy
Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of Ethics
Drake, Durant
Ethics
(5) While the older racial and national barriers between peoples are
breaking down, so that the possibilities of human brotherhood and
cooperation are laterally increasing, and the wretched fratricidal
wars between peoples coming toward an end, [Footnote: As I read the
proof sheets of this book (August, 1914), news comes of the outbreak
of what may prove the costliest and one of the least excusable wars
of history. Nevertheless, the end of international wars draws near.]
Other barriers, between upper and lower classes, are thickening, new
antagonisms and antipathies that threaten yet much friction and
unhappiness and a retardation of moral progress. Rich are becoming
farther and farther consciousness is on the increase, class-wars in
the form of strikes, riots, and sabotage, are ominous symptoms. Masses
of the laboring class believe that a great class-war is not only
inevitable but desirable. Such conflicts, however, besides their
material losses, engender hatred, cruelty, lust, greed, and all sorts
of other forms of immorality. No one can predict how far such struggles
may go in the future toward undoing the socializing process which at
best has so many obstacles to meet and moves so slowly. Many forces
are at work, however, for moral uplift. The spread of education, teaching
men to think, to discern evils, and to comprehend the reasons for right
conduct, the increasing influence of public opinion through newspapers
and magazines, the growing number of organizations working to eradicate
evils, the gradual increase of wise legislation, the reviving moral
pressure of the Christian Church such signs of the times should give
us courage as well as show us where we can take hold to help.
Morality is not static, a cut-and-dried system to be obeyed or neglected,
but a set of experiments, being gradually worked out by mankind, a
dynamic, progressive instrument which we can help ourselves to forge.
There is room yet for moral genius; we are yet in the early and formative
stage of human morality. We should not be content with past achievement,
with the contemporary standards of our fellows. If we give our keenest
thought and our earnest effort, there is no knowing what noble heights
of morality we may be helping the future to attain.
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