Handbook of Ethical Theory by George Stuart Fullerton (e reader TXT) 📕

more than a vague physical explanation of actions due to blind impulse, we are compelled to refer to the idea, the psychic fact present, as efficient cause. Not so when we are concerned with actions of a higher order. We constantly refer such actions to the ends they have in view. We regard them as satisfactorily explained when we have pointed out the end upon which they are directed.

To the moralist it is of the utmost importance to know what ends men actually choose, and what they may be induced to choose. He is concerned with conduct, which is intelligent and purposive action. Conduct may be studied without entering upon an investigation of the efficient causes, whether physical or mental, which are the antecedents of action of any kind. Such matters one may leave to the physiologist and the psychologist.

Accordingly, when I speak of “the object” in desiring and willing, I shall use the word to indicate the end held in view, that toward which the creature desiring or willing strives.

41. HUMAN NATURE AND THE OBJECTS CHOSEN.—What objects do men actually desire and will to attain? To give a detailed account of them appears to be a hopeless and profitless task.

I take up my pen, I write, I turn to a book; I look at my watch, change my position, stretch, walk up and down, speak to some one who is present, smile or give vent to irritation; I sit down to a meal, eat of this dish rather than of that, go out to visit a place of amusement, respond to the appeal of the beggar in the street—in short, I fill my day with a thousand actions the most diverse, which follow each other without intermission.

Each of these actions may be the object of desire and will. No novel, however realistic, however prolix in its descriptions, can give us more than the barest outlines of the course of life followed by the personages it attempts to portray. A touch here, a touch there, and a character is indicated. No more, for more would be intolerable.

It is significant, however, that the few points touched upon can serve to give an idea of a character. Notwithstanding their diversity, volitions fall into classes; it is quite possible to indicate in a general way the kind of choices a given creature may be impelled to make. They are a revelation of the nature of the creature choosing. That beings differing in their nature should be impelled to different courses of action can surprise no one. Cats have no temptation to wander in herds; the exhibition of pugnacity in a sheep would strike us with wonder.

To every kind of creature its nature: and, although individuals within a kind differ more or less from one another, we look for approximation to a type. So it is with man. The expression “human nature,” so much in the mouths of certain moralists ancient and modern, although somewhat vague, is not without its significance. To it we refer in passing a judgment upon individual human beings, and we regard as abnormal those who vary widely from the type.

42. THE INSTINCTS AND IMPULSES OF MAN.—In sketching for us the outlines of this distinctively human nature, the psychologist proceeds to an enumeration of the fundamental instincts and general innate tendencies of man, and he draws up a list of the emotions which correspond to them. He mentions the instincts of flight, repulsion, curiosity, pugnacity, self-abasement, self-assertion, the parental instinct, the instinct of sex, the instinct for food, that for acquisition, etc. He points out that man is by nature open to sympathy, is suggestible, and has the impulse to play. In such instincts and inborn general tendencies, blending and reinforcing or opposing and inhibiting one another, he sees the forces which give their direction to desire and will; which select, out of all possible objects, those which are to become objects for man.

It is not necessary here to discuss the nature of instinct, to distinguish between an instinct and a more general inborn tendency, or to attempt a complete list of the instincts and inborn tendencies of man. Nor need I ask whether every choice made by a human being can be traced, directly or indirectly, to one or more of the instincts and other tendencies given in the above or in any similar list. In explaining the individual choices which men make, or the desires to which they are subject, there is much scope for the ingenuity of the psychologist.

But of the significance for human life of the impulses mentioned there can be no question. What would the life of a man be if he could feel no fear or repulsion? Could there be a development of knowledge in the absence of curiosity? How long would the race endure if the parental instinct were wholly lacking? What would become of a man who never desired food? Could a human society of any sort exist if there were no sympathy or tender feeling, no impulse to seek the company of other men? It is men, such as they are, endowed with the qualities which distinguish man, who associate themselves into communities, and the customs and laws of such reflect the fundamental impulses in which they had their origin.

43. THE STUDY OF MAN’S INSTINCTS IMPORTANT.—That a careful study of human nature is of the utmost importance to the moralist is palpable. He must not prescribe for man a rule of conduct which it is not in man to follow. He must not set before him, as inducements to actions, objects which it is impossible for him to desire and, hence, to choose.

To be sure, the main traits of human nature were pretty well recognized many centuries before the modern science of psychology had its birth. Had they not been, man could not have had rational dealings with his fellow-man; could not effectively have persuaded and threatened, rewarded and punished, and, in short, set in motion all the machinery which is at the service of one man when he wants to influence the conduct of another. But moralists ancient and modern have made serious blunders through an imperfect understanding of the impulses natural to man; and the modern psychologist, without claiming to be a wholly original or an infallible guide, may be of no little service in helping us to detect them.

Thus, it was possible for as shrewd an observer of man as Aristotle to explain the affection of a man for his child by regarding it as an extension of self-love, the child being, in a sense, a part of the parent. [Footnote: Ethics, Book VIII, chapter xii.] Aristotle’s quaint explanation of the fact that maternal affection is apt to be stronger than paternal is an error of a kindred nature. [Footnote: Ibid., Book IX, chapter vii.] And the ancient egoists, [Footnote: See the answer to Epicurus in the Discourses of Epictetus, translated by LONG, London, 1890, pp. 69-70.] in setting before man their selfish and antisocial ideal of human conduct, made their appeal, not to the whole man, but only to a part of him. The normal man, whether savage or civilized, whether ancient or modern, cannot desire a life filled only with the objects which they set before him. Nor is the modern moralist, or as he prefers to style himself, “immoralist,” Nietzsche, [Footnote: A sketch of Nietzsche’s doctrine is given later, see chapter xxix.] guilty of less gross a blunder. He rails at morality as commonly understood, calling it “the morality of the herd,” and he recommends isolation, the repression of sympathy, and a contempt for one’s fellows. To be sure, the “herd” is a scornful, rhetorical expression,—what Bentham would have called a “question-begging epithet,”—for men do not, properly speaking, live in herds; but they do normally live in human societies of some sort, and they have the instincts and impulses which fit them to do so. The repression of such instincts and impulses does violence to their nature, and he who advocates other than a social morality should advocate it for some creature other than man. Man is a social creature, and, among the objects of his desire and will, he must give a prominent place to some which are distinctively social.

44. THE BEWILDERING MULTIPLICITY OF THE OBJECTS OF DESIRE, AND THE EFFORT TO FIND AN UNDERLYING UNITY.—The mere enumeration of the characteristics which have been adduced as instincts or fundamental innate tendencies of man is enough to reveal the truth that man is not merely the subject of desire, but of desires; that is to say, his impulses are directed upon objects widely different from each other.

And when we call to mind that the concepts of the instincts and fundamental tendencies of human nature, as thus enumerated, are products of abstraction and generalization—are general notions gathered from the numberless concrete instances of desire and will furnished by our observation—we are forced to realize that the objects which individual men set before themselves in desiring and willing are really endlessly varied.

All men are not equally moved by fear, anger, repulsion, tender emotion, or sympathy. Nor do all men find the same things the objects of their fear, anger, repulsion, and the rest. The desire for food is an abstraction; in the concrete, this man eagerly accepts an oyster, and that one turns from it in disgust. In order to deal successfully with our fellow-man, we must not merely know man. We must know men.

Furthermore, not only do individuals set their affections upon different objects, but the same person at different stages of his development desires widely different things. What is a temptation to the boy has no attraction for the man. What fills the savage with longings may inspire in the product of a high civilization no other feeling than repulsion.

And what is true of the individual is true of men in the mass. The objects of desire and of endeavor are not the same in communities of all orders. Each kind of man has its own nature, which differs in some respects from that of each other kind, and dictates what shall be, for this or that man, an object of desire and will. No two men desire precisely the same thing in all particulars. Yet each is a man, and is endowed with the usual complement of human instincts.

The process of abstraction and generalization which resulted in the above-mentioned list of the elements which enter into the constitution of human nature is, nevertheless, not without its uses. It serves to order, to some extent, at least, the bewildering variety of the phenomena presented to us when we view the broad field of the desires and volitions of all sorts and conditions of men. Men’s choices fall into kinds; there is similiarity in difference. We do not approach an unknown man with the feeling that he is a wholly unknown quantity. He is, at least, a man, and we know something of men. We have some notion how to go at him.

But the ordering of the motley multiplicity of men’s desires by a reference to the fundamental instincts of man stops far short of a complete unification. We are left with a number of distinct and apparently irreducible impulses and tendencies on our hands. If it is useful to go so far, may it not be much more useful to go still farther?

Aristotle divided things eligible into those eligible in themselves and those eligible for the sake of something else. How it would illuminate the field of action, if it were discovered that men ultimately desire but one thing, and choose all other things on account of it! Would the discovery not facilitate immensely our dealings with our fellows, suggesting new possibilities of control? A notorious instance of the attempt to conjure away the bewildering diversity