These ethical judgments we pass on self-regarding acts are ordinarily
little emphasized; partly because the promptings of the self-regarding
desires, generally strong enough, do not need moral enforcement, and
partly because the promptings of the other-regarding desires, less
strong, and often overridden, do need moral enforcement. Hence results
a contrast. On turning to that second class of adjustments of acts
to ends which subserve the rearing of offspring, we no longer find
any obscurity in the application of the words good and bad to them,
according as they are efficient or inefficient. The expressions good
nursing and bad nursing, whether they refer to the supply of food, the
quantity and amount of clothing, or the due ministration to infantine
wants from hour to hour, tacitly recognize as special ends which ought
to be fulfilled, the furthering of the vital functions, with a view
to the general end of continued life and growth. A mother is called
good who, ministering to all the physical needs of her children, also
adjusts her behavior in ways conducive to their mental health; and
a bad father is one who either does not provide the necessaries of
life for his family or otherwise acts in a manner injurious to their
bodies or minds. Similarly of the education given to them, or provided
for them. Goodness or badness is affirmed of it (often with little
consistency, however) according as its methods are so adapted to
physical and psychical requirements, as to further the children's lives
for the time being, while preparing them for carrying on complete and
prolonged adult life.
Most emphatic, however, are the applications of the words good and bad
to conduct throughout that third division of it comprising the deeds
by which men affect one another. In maintaining their own lives and
fostering their offspring, men's adjustments of acts to ends are so apt
to hinder the kindred adjustments of other men, that insistance on the
needful limitations has to be perpetual; and the mischiefs caused by
men's interferences with one another's life-subserving actions are so
great that the interdicts have to be peremptory. Hence, the fact that
the words good and bad have come to be specially associated with acts
which further the complete living of others and acts which obstruct
their complete living. Goodness, standing by itself, suggests, above
all other things, the conduct of one who aids the sick in re-acquiring
normal vitality, assists the unfortunate to recover the means of
maintaining themselves, defends those who are threatened with harm in
person, property, or reputation, and aids whatever promises to improve
the living of all his fellows. Contrariwise, badness brings to mind, as
its leading correlative, the conduct of one who, in carrying on his own
life, damages the lives of others by injuring their bodies, destroying
their possessions, defrauding them, calumniating them.
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