chiefly, general adoption of the implied course, having the effect that
the inferior would not suffer from their inferiority nor the superior
gain by their superiority, would produce universal misery, withdrawal
is justified--the act is relatively right.
§ 103. I pass now to the second of the two propositions above
enunciated. After recognizing the truth that a large part of human
conduct is not absolutely right, but only relatively right, we have
to recognize the further truth that in many cases where there is no
absolutely right course, but only courses that are more or less wrong,
it is not possible to say which is the least wrong. Recurrence to the
instances just given will show this.
There is a point up to which it is relatively right for a parent to
carry self-sacrifice for the benefit of offspring, and there is a point
beyond which self-sacrifice cannot be pushed without bringing, not only
on himself or herself, but also on the family, evils greater than
those to be prevented by the self-sacrifice. Who shall say where this
point is? Depending on the constitutions and needs of those concerned
it is in no two cases the same, and cannot be by any one more than
guessed. The transgressions or short-comings of a servant vary from the
trivial to the grave, and the evils which discharge may bring range
through countless degrees from slight to serious. The penalty may be
inflicted for a very small offense, and then there is wrong done, or,
after numerous grave offenses, it may not be inflicted, and again there
is wrong done. How shall be determined the degree of transgression
beyond which to discharge is less wrong than not to discharge? In like
manner with the shopkeeper's misdemeanors. No one can sum up either the
amount of positive and negative pain which tolerating them involves,
nor the amount of positive and negative pain involved by not tolerating
them, and in medium cases no one can say where the one exceeds the
other.
In men's wider relations frequently occur circumstances under which a
decision one or other way is imperative, and yet under which not even
the most sensitive conscience, helped by the clearest judgment, can
decide which of the alternatives is relatively right. Two examples will
suffice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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