really compounds containing their antecedents as latent elements. But
I know no justification for this transference of the conceptions of
chemistry to psychology;[32] I know no reason for considering psychical
antecedents as really constitutive of their psychical consequents, in
spite of the apparent dissimilarity between the two. In default of such
reasons, a psychologist must accept as elementary what introspection
carefully performed declares to be so; and, using this criterion, I
find that the notion we have been examining, as it now exists in our
thought, cannot be resolved into any more simple notions: it can only
be made clearer by determining as precisely as possible its relation
to other notions with which it is connected in ordinary thought,
especially to those with which it is liable to be confounded.
In performing this process it is important to note and distinguish
two different implications with which the word “ought” is used; in
the narrowest ethical sense what we judge ‘ought to be’ done, is
always thought capable of being brought about by the volition of any
individual to whom the judgment applies. I cannot conceive that I
‘ought’ to do anything which at the same time I judge that I cannot do.
In a wider sense, however,--which cannot conveniently be discarded--I
sometimes judge that I ‘ought’ to know what a wiser man would know,
or feel as a better man would feel, in my place, though I may know
that I could not directly produce in myself such knowledge or feeling
by any effort of will. In this case the word merely implies an ideal
or pattern which I ‘ought’--in the stricter sense--to seek to imitate
as far as possible. And this wider sense seems to be that in which
the word is normally used in the precepts of Art generally, and in
political judgments: when I judge that the laws and constitution of my
country ‘ought to be’ other than they are, I do not of course imply
that my own or any other individual’s single volition can directly
bring about the change.[33] In either case, however, I imply that what
ought to be is a possible object of knowledge: _i.e._ that what I judge
ought to be must, unless I am in error, be similarly judged by all
rational beings who judge truly of the matter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account