Social Rights And Duties: Addresses to Ethical Societies. Vol 1 [of 2]Stephen, Leslie
Philosophy
Social Rights And Duties: Addresses to Ethical Societies. Vol 1 [of 2]
Stephen, Leslie
Ethics, Evolutionary; Social ethics
Now, from the point of view of securing a maximum efficiency, it seems
to be a clearly desirable end that the only qualities which should
indisputably help to determine a man's position in life, should also be
those which determine his fitness for working in it efficiently. In
Utopia, it should be the rule that each man shall do what he can do
best. If one man is a gamekeeper and another a prime minister, it
should be because one has the gifts of a gamekeeper and the other the
gifts of a prime minister: whereas, in the actual state, as we all
know, the gamekeeper often becomes the prime minister, while the
potential prime minister is limited to looking after poachers. But I
also urge that we must take into account the actual and not the
potential qualities at any given moment. The inequality may be obviated
by raising the grade of culture in all classes; but we must not assume
that there is an actual equality where, in fact, there is the widest
possible difference. In short, I assert that it is our duty to try to
make men equal; though I deny that we are clearly justified in assuming
an equality. By making them equal, I do not, of course, mean that we
should try to make them all alike. I recognise, with Mill and every
sensible writer on the subject, that such a consummation represents
rather a danger than an advantage. I wish to see individuality
strengthened, not crushed, to encourage men to develop the widest
possible diversity of tastes, talents, and pursuits, and to attain
unity of opinion, not by a calm assumption that this or that creed is
true, but by encouraging the sharpest and freest collision of opinions.
The equality of which I speak is that which would result, if the
distinction into organs were not of such a nature as to make one class
more favourable than another to the full development of whatever
character and talents a man may possess. In other words, the
distribution into classes would correspond purely and simply to the
telling off of each man to the duties which he is best fitted to
discharge. The position into which he is born, the class surroundings
which determine his development, must not carry with them any
disqualification for his acquiring the necessary aptitude for any other
position. It was, I think, Fourier who argued that a man ought to be
paid more highly for being a chimney-sweep than for being a prime
minister, because the duties of a sweep are the more disagreeable,--a
position which some prime ministers may, perhaps, see reason to doubt.
My suggestion is, that in Utopia every human being would be so placed
as to be capable of preparing himself for any other position, and
should then go to the work for which he is best fitted. The equality as
thus defined would, I submit, leave no room for a sense of injustice,
because the qualities which determine a man's position would be the
qualities for which he deserves the position, desert in this sense
being measurable by fitness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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