The Scientific Basis of Morals, and Other Essays: Viz.: Right and Wrong, The Ethics of Belief, The Ethics of ReligionClifford, William Kingdon
Philosophy
The Scientific Basis of Morals, and Other Essays: Viz.: Right and Wrong, The Ethics of Belief, The Ethics of Religion
Clifford, William Kingdon
Ethics
but they are independent of the individual, and practically universal
for the present condition of the human species.
I mean by Science the application of experience to new circumstances,
by the aid of an order of nature which has been observed in the
past, and on the assumption that such order will continue in the
future. The simplest use of experience as a guide to action is probably
not even conscious; it is the association by continually-repeated
selection of certain actions with certain circumstances, as in the
unconsciously-acquired craft of the maker of flint implements. I
still call this science, although it is only a beginning; because
the physiological process is a type of what takes place in all later
stages. The next step may be expressed in the form of a hypothetical
maxim,--'If you want to make brass, melt your copper along with this
blue stone.' To a maxim of this sort it may always be replied, 'I do
not want to make brass, and so I shall not do as you tell me.' This
reply is anticipated in the final form of science, when it is expressed
as a statement or proposition: brass is an alloy of copper and zinc,
and calamine is zinc carbonate. Belief in a general statement is
an artifice of our mental constitution, whereby infinitely various
sensations and groups of sensations are brought into connection with
infinitely various actions and groups of actions. On the phenomenal
side there corresponds a certain cerebral structure by which various
combinations of disturbances in the sensor tract are made to lead to
the appropriate combinations of disturbances in the motor tract. The
important point is that science, though apparently transformed into
pure knowledge, has yet never lost its character of being a craft;
and that it is not the knowledge itself which can rightly be called
science, but a special way of getting and of using knowledge. Namely,
science is the getting of knowledge from experience on the assumption
of uniformity in nature, and the use of such knowledge to guide the
actions of men. And the most abstract statements or propositions in
science are to be regarded as bundles of hypothetical maxims packed
into a portable shape and size. Every scientific fact is a shorthand
expression for a vast number of practical directions: if you want
so-and-so, do so-and-so.
If with this meaning of the word 'Science,' there is such a thing as
a scientific basis of Morals, it must be true that,--
1. The maxims of Ethic are hypothetical maxims.
2. Derived from experience.
3. On the assumption of uniformity in nature.
These propositions I shall now endeavor to prove; and in conclusion,
I shall indicate the direction in which we may look for those general
statements of fact whose organization will complete the likeness of
ethical and physical science.
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