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

82. REASONABLE ENDS.—We have seen in the chapter on “Rationality and Will,” that we cannot consider a man rational unless his choices are harmonized and converge upon some comprehensive end. It has been hinted, furthermore, that not all comprehensive ends can be described as reasonable or rational.

A child may be consistently disobedient to its parents, and, given parents of a certain kind, it may find its life highly satisfactory. A man may consistently be a bad neighbor, and may harbor the conviction that, on the whole, he gains by it. A miser may be consistent; he may come to joy in denying himself luxuries and even comforts, repaid in the consciousness of an increasing store. The philosophical egoist may reason with admirable consistency, and may habitually act in accordance with his convictions, leading, for him, a very endurable life.

All these may be intelligent, even acutely intelligent, and may reason clearly and well. Nevertheless, men generally refuse to consider their behavior reasonable. There are ends which we regard as rational, and others which we condemn as irrational.

It is not enough, hence, that a man’s volitions should be intelligently harmonized and unified. His will must be adjusted to ends which themselves can be judged rational.

And in deciding whether the ends he chooses are rational or not, we proceed just as we do in judging the rationality of his individual choices. If the latter are made in the light of information, if their significance is realized, if they converge upon some comprehensive end and do not merely clash and defeat one another, we have seen that they are made under the guidance of reason or intelligence. The individual volitions are congruous with the permanent set of the man’s will. They are judged by their background, by their harmony with the “pattern” which is revealed in the man’s volitional life.

Even so, each such volitional pattern, the harmonized and unified will of the individual as directed upon some comprehensive end, is judged to be rational or not according as it does or does not accord with the ends pursued by the social will. Individuals, whose wills are thoroughly unified and harmonized by the dominant influence of given chosen ends, may be thoroughly out of harmony with the chosen ends of the larger organism of which they are a part. They may be out of harmony with each other. Considered alone, each may display an internal order and unity. Taken together they may be seen to be in open strife.

We have found the social will to be something relatively permanent and moving with more or less consistency toward certain comprehensive ends. That the ends chosen by given individuals may be very much out of harmony with these is palpable. The deliberate idler, the whole-hearted epicure, the habitually untruthful man, the miser, the cold egoist—these and such as these are condemned in enlightened communities. Their lives do not help to further, but serve to frustrate, the ends approved by the social will. In so far they may be regarded as consistently irrational.

83. AN OBJECTION ANSWERED.—Consistently irrational! it may be exclaimed; how can that be? is not a farsighted consistency the very mark of rational choice?

The difficulty is only an apparent one. Many forms of consistency may indicate a certain degree of rationality, and yet too slight a degree to win approval. There is such a thing as a narrow consistency. He who devotes his life to the purpose of revenge, may live consistently, but he loses much. A bitter and angry life is not a desirable thing, even from the standpoint of the individual.

But why should we limit ourselves to the standpoint of the individual, in judging of the rationality of ends? There are those to whom it appears self-evident that this should be done; those to whom it does not seem reasonable for a man to do anything by which he, on the whole, loses; those who deny the reasonableness of self-sacrifice in any form. This doctrine will be examined later. [Footnote: See Sec 102 and 128.]

Here it is enough to point out that men do not actually limit the notion of rationality in this way. In every, even moderately, rational life some desires must be suppressed. All desires cannot be satisfied. Why should it not be regarded as rational and reasonable that, to attain the comprehensive ends of the social will, certain ends consistently chosen by certain kinds of individuals should deliberately be denied?

As a matter of fact, men generally do so regard it. They employ the terms rational and irrational, reasonable and unreasonable, to indicate the harmony or lack of harmony between the individual and the social will. We call the man unreasonable who insists upon having his own way regardless of his fellows; and this, even in instances in which his fellows cannot punish him for his selfish attitude.

It is not a matter of accident that this should be so. The analogy between the relation of separate volitions to the dominant ends which control action on the part of the individual, and the relation of the ultimate choices of individuals to the ends pursued by the social will, is a close one. In the well-ordered mind the clash of conflicting desires is reduced to a minimum. In a well-ordered community the conflict of individual wills is also reduced to a minimum. In each case, we are concerned with the work of reason, and judgments as to rationality and irrationality are equally in place.

84. REASONABLE SOCIAL ENDS.—The will of the individual, when affirmed to be rational or irrational, is, therefore, referred to the background of the social will. But the social will is more or less different in different communities, and in the one community at different stages of its development. Is there any measure of the degree of rationality of the social will itself? is there any standard to which its different expressions may be referred?

We may criticise a community as we criticise an individual man even when he is taken as abstracted from his social setting. The man’s choices may be blind, conflicting, wayward, and ill-adapted to serve his interests taken as a whole. In the last chapter we saw that a community may resemble such a man. It may be ignorant, superstitious, short-sighted, and in conflict with itself. The social will as actually revealed may be an imperfect and inconsistent thing. Here enlightenment and inner harmonization are called for, to set the social will free.

But even where the will of a community is something more definite and consistent than this, it may be condemned by the moral judgment of the enlightened. An appeal may be made from the will of the community in the narrower sense to that of the larger community. The limits of nation, race and religion may be transcended, and we may appeal to humanity as such, refusing to recognize the will of any lesser unit as really ultimate. He who occupies the one standpoint is apt to speak of defending his legitimate rights, or of extending to subject races the blessings of civilization. He who takes his stand upon the other may talk of lust of dominion, or desire for economic advantage. The one may use the term righteous indignation; the other, the word anger. The moral judgment passed upon an act depends upon the concept under which men manage to bring it. What is approved by the tribal ethics may be abhorrent to the ethics of humanity.

But the larger social will, so far as it has gotten itself expressed at all, seems to remain something vague and indefinite. It is appealed to as rational; but how indicate clearly the end which it sets before itself and the obligations which it lays upon mankind?

The difficulty of describing in detail the ultimate ends of the real social will has led some writers to speak in terms of exaggerated vagueness. The mere idea in a man “of something, he knows not what, which he may and should become” can give little guidance to action; nor can one aim with much confidence at a goal of which “we can only speak or think in negatives.” [Footnote: Prolegomena to Ethics, Sec Sec 192, 172, 180. But GREEN is not always so indefinite. He is on the right track. He reverences the social will and the historical development of the social order.]

But it is not necessary to speak in this way. We may form some conception of the real, rational social will, without being compelled to know all that man is capable of becoming and without being able to forecast the details of his environment in the distant future.

We may attain to our conception by determining clearly the nature of the aims man sets before himself in proportion to his growing rationality. We can see in what direction man moves as he develops and becomes enlightened. From this standpoint, the aims of the rational social will appear to be as follows:

(1) The harmonious satisfaction of the impulses and desires of man.

(2) Such an unfolding of his powers as will increase their range and variety, broaden man’s horizon, and give him an increased control over erratic impulses.

(3) The bringing about of a social state in which the will of each individual within a community counts for something, and not merely the will of a chosen few.

(4) The broadening of the conception of what constitutes a community, so that ever increasing numbers are regarded as having claims that must be recognized.

(5) The taking into consideration of the whole of life; the whole life of individuals and of communities, so that the insistent present shall not be given undue weight, as against the future.

85. THE ETHICS OF REASON.—The doctrine of the Rational Social Will might very properly be called the Ethics of Reason. It is not to be confounded with the so-called “tribal” or “group” ethics. To be sure, it has to do with man as a social being; but this is characteristic of ethical systems generally. Man is a social being; he is one essentially, and not accidentally. That he should be a member of a tribe, or of any lesser group than the whole body of sentient and reasonable beings, may not unjustly be regarded as an historical accident, as a function of his position in the scale of development.

In judging the doctrine of the rational social will, bear in mind the following:

(1) It rests upon the basis of the impulsive and volitional nature of man.

(2) It recognizes reason in the individual, and declares that only so far as he is rational is he the proper subject of ethics at all. Erratic and uncontrolled impulse knows no moral law.

(3) It sees reason in the customs, laws and public opinion