In the ethical situation, according to our statement, the subject of the
judgment (the object of attention) is the new end which has just been
presented in imagination, and we have now to see that the agent's
attitude toward this end is for our present purpose essentially the same
as toward a physical object which is under scrutiny. For just as the
physical object is such for consciousness because it is partly relevant
(whether in the way of furthering or of hindering) to the agent's
purpose, but as yet partly not understood from this point of view, so
the imaged end may likewise be ambiguous. The agent's moral purpose may
be the (very likely mythical) primitive one of which we read in
"associational" discussions of the moral consciousness--that of avoiding
punishment. It may be that of "imitative," sympathetic obedience to
authority--a sentiment whose fundamental importance for ethical
psychology has long remained without due recognition.[120] It may be
loyalty to an ideal of conscience, or yet again a purpose of enlargement
and development of personality. But on either supposition the
compatibility of the end with the prevailing standard or principle of
decision may be a matter of doubt and so call for judgment. The problem
will, of course, be a problem in the full logical sense as involving
judgment of the type described in our discussion of the ethical
situation only when the attitudes of obedience to authority and to fixed
ideals have been outgrown; but, on the other hand, as might be shown, it
is just the inevitable increasing use of judgment with reference to
these formulations of the moral life which gradually undermines them
and, by a kind of "internal dialectic" of the moral consciousness,
brings the agent to recognition as well as to more perfect practice of a
logical or deliberative method.
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