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

Some writers do not distinguish between emotions and feelings. Thus, Darwin, in his Descent of Man, calls pleasure and pain “emotions.” Marshall (op. cit., chapter ii) makes emotions, and even intuitions, “instinct-feelings.” Dewey, in his Ethics (p. 251), appears to treat emotions as synonymous with feelings. Gardiner, in his interesting and careful study, Affective Psychology in Ancient Writers after Aristotle (_Psychological Review_. May, 1919), treats of “what are popularly called the feelings, including emotions.”

On the other hand, in ethical writings the word, “feelings,” very often means no more than pleasure and pain. Thus, Seth (A Study of Ethical Principles, p. 63), makes feelings synonymous with pleasure and pain. Muirhead (Elements of Ethics, p. 46), says, “by feeling is meant simply pleasure and pain”; and to have “interest” in, he defines as to have pleasure in (p. 46).

This narrowing of the meaning of the word on the part of ethical writers is, perhaps, natural. The hedonistic moralists made pleasure and pain the only ultimate reasonable stimulants to action. Many moralists opposed them (see, later, Chapters XXIV and XXV). So pleasure and pain became “the feelings,” par excellence. Both Dewey and Alexander sometimes speak as if, by the word “feeling,” we meant no more than pleasure and pain. So does Kant.

The modern psychologist sometimes distinguishes pleasure and pain from “agreeableness” and “disagreeableness.” Marshall, a high authority on pleasure and pain, refuses to draw the distinction (op. cit., Part III. chapter vi). But he also refuses to call pleasure and pain sensations, regarding them as “qualifications of our sensations,” like intensity, duration, and the like.

Are pleasures, as pleasures, alike? and are pains, as pains, alike? Jeremy Bentham refused to distinguish between kinds of pleasures. On the other hand, John Stuart Mill did so (see Chapter XXV in this volume); and S. Alexander, in his work entitled Moral Order and Progress, maintains that pleasures differ in kind, and cannot be compared merely in their intensity (see page 202).

The whole matter is complicated enough, and there is occupation for the most disputatious. But I do not think that these disputes very directly affect the argument of my chapter.

Sec 50. That there is a relation between feeling and action, but that the two are by no means nicely adjusted to each other, has been recognized in many quarters.

Darwin, discussing the mental and moral qualities of man, points out that the satisfaction of some fundamental instincts gives little pleasure, although uneasiness is suffered if they are not satisfied. Seth (op. cit., p. 64) says that feelings “guide” action; and he claims that the energy of a moving idea lies in the feeling which it arouses (p. 70). On the quantity of emotion, and its relation to action, see Stephen, The Science of Ethics, ii, iii, 25.

Sec 51. It appears to be repugnant to Green to admit that feeling— pleasure—can be the direct object of action; and he denies roundly that a sum of pleasures can be made an object of desire and will at all (Prolegomena to Ethics, Sec 221; see Sec 113 of this book). Moreover, he maintains, and in this Dewey follows him, that the making of pleasure an object is evidence of the existence of unhealthy desires. I cannot but think this, taken generally, an exaggeration. Of course, what is called “a man of pleasure” is a pretty poor sort of a thing.

Sec 52. In this section I do not touch at all upon the immemorial dispute concerning what has been called “the ‘freedom’ of the will.”

Indeed, I leave it out of this book altogether. The moralist must, I think, assume that man has natural impulses and is a rational creature. Those who are interested in the problem above mentioned, may turn to my Introduction to Philosophy, chapter xi, Sec 46, where the matter is discussed, and references (in the corresponding note) are given.

Chapter XVI.—The matter of this chapter appears, clear enough, but it may be well to give a few references touching the two conceptions of the functions of Reason.

Men of quite varying views have inclined to the doctrine which appeals to me. I think it is to be gotten out of Hegel. Green, who is much influenced by him, takes, as the rational end of conduct, a “satisfaction on the whole,” which implies a harmonization and unification of the desires (see, in this book, Chapter XXVI, Sec 122). Spencer, in his Study of Sociology, defines the rational as the consistent. Stephen, in his Science of Ethics, chapter ii, Sec 3, says: “Reason, in short, whatever its nature, is the faculty which enables us to act with a view to the distant and the future.” He claims that rationality tends to bring about a certain unity or harmony. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, (pp. 572-581), says that reason harmonizes the impulses.

The champions of the opposite view are the intuitionists proper—such men as Kant, Reid, Price, even Sidgwick. To judge of their doctrine—they were great men, be it remembered, and worthy of all respect—I suggest that the reader wait until he has read the chapter on Intuitionism in this volume, Chapter XXIII.

5. CHAPTERS XVII TO XIX.—What is said in Chapter XVII seems too obviously true to need comment. Indeed, it may be questioned whether the chapter is not full of platitudes. But even platitudes are overlooked by some; and there is some merit in arranging them systematically. Besides, they may serve as a spring-board.

As to Chapter XVIII, I suggest reading chapter vii, of Westermarck’s book on The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas. It is entitled Customs and Laws as Expressions of Moral Ideas.

For Chapter XIX, one may read Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, Part I, chapter vi, where he shows how the mere “group morality” gradually gives place to a wider morality in which the concept of humanity plays a part. In the same work, Part II, chapters i and ii, the author treats of religious or sub-religious ideas as affecting conduct. Compare Westermarck, op. cit., chapter xl. See, also, The Ancient City, by Fustel de Coulanges.

6. CHAPTERS XX TO XXII.—What is said in Chapter XX may be well reinforced by turning to Hobhouse (op. cit.), Part I, chapter iii, where he traces the gradual evolution of rational morality in the field of justice. See, also, Westermarck, (op. cit.) chapters ix and x, i. e., “The Will as the Subject of Moral Judgment and the Influence of External Events,” and “Agents under Intellectual Disability.” In the last chapter referred to, animals, drunkards, idiots, the insane, etc., come on the stage. The chapter is full of curious information.

In Chapter XXI (Sec 86), I have spoken of the hesitating utterances of moralists touching any duties we may owe to the brutes. I suggest that before anyone dogmatize in detail on this subject he read with some care such a comprehensive work as Miss Washburn’s The Animal Mind. The book is admirable. Chapters x and xliv of Westermarck’s work are instructive and entertaining on this subject. Hegel disposes of the animals rather summarily. See his Philosophy of Right, Sec 47. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, Book III, chapter iv, 2, is well worth consulting. See in my own volume, Chapter XXX, Sec 141.

For Chapter XXII, I give no references. I appeal only to the common sense of my reader.

7. Chapters XXIII to XXIX.—For the chapters on the Schools of the Moralists, XXIII to XXIX, I shall give briefer notes than I should have given, were the chapters not already so well provided with foot-notes.

So far as the first four of these chapters are concerned, I shall assume that enough has been said, drawing attention only to two points which concern Chapter XXIII.

It is very interesting to note that one of our best critics of intuitionism, Hemy Sidgwick, was himself an intuitionist. His Methods of Ethics deserves very close attention. Again Intuitions are often spoken of as if they had been shot out of a pistol, and had neither father nor mother. To understand them better it is only necessary to read chapter viii of Dr. H. R. Marshall’s little book, Mind and Conduct, which shows how difficult it is to mark intuitions off sharply, and to treat them as if they had nothing in common with reason.

Those interested in the ethics of evolution, treated in Chapter XXVII, should not miss reading the fourth chapter of Darwin’s Descent of Man. Huxley’s essay, Evolution and Ethics, might be read. The “Prolegomena” to the essay is, however, much more valuable than the essay itself. Spencer’s general theory of conduct is best gathered from his Data of Ethics, which was reprinted as Part I of his Principles of Ethics. The volume by C. M. Williams, entitled, A Review of Evolutionary Ethics, gives a convenient account of a dozen or more writers who have treated of ethics from the evolutionary standpoint. It is well not to overlook what Sidgwick has to say of evolution and ethics; see The Methods of Ethics, Book I, chapter ii, Sec 2.

As for Chapter XXVIII, on “Pessimism,” it is enough, I think, to refer the reader to Book IV, in Schopenhauer’s work on The World as Will and Idea. The Book is entitled The Assertion and Denial of the Will to Live, where Self-consciousness has been Attained. See also his supplementary chapters, xlvi, on “The Vanity and Suffering of Life,” and xlviii, “On the Doctrine of the Denial of the Will to Live.” For the doctrine of von Hartmann, see chapters xiii to xv, in the part of his work entitled, The Metaphysic of the Unconscious.

For the chapter on Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche, I shall give but a few references, though the literature on these writers is enormous. The English reader will find T. K. Abbott’s translation of Kant’s ethical writings a very convenient volume (third edition, London, 1883). The translation of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, by S. W. Dyde (1896), I have found good, where I have compared it with the original. The word “Right” in the title is unavoidably ambiguous, for the German word means both “right” and “law.” Hegel is dealing, in a sense, with both. I have indicated, in a foot-note, that Nietzsche ought to be read in the original. He is a marvellous artist.

Perhaps I should add that Nietzsche will be read with most pleasure by those who do not attempt to find in his works a system of ethics. I recommend to the reader, especially, his three volumes: The Genealogy of Morals; Beyond Good and Evil; and Thus Spake Zarathustra; (New York, 1911).

8. CHAPTERS XXX TO XXXVI.—I shall not comment on Chapter XXX. It is sufficiently interpreted by what has been said earlier in this book. Nor do I think that Chapter XXXI needs to be discussed here. I need only say that many moralists have commented upon the negative aspect of the moral law. It will be remembered that the “demon” of Socrates—a dreadful translation—was a negative sign. I do not think that those who have dwelt upon the negative aspect of morality have reflected sufficiently upon the moral organization of society. We are put to school unavoidably as soon as we are born.

I shall not dwell upon Chapters XXXII and XXXIII. Here I appeal merely to the good sense of the reader.

But Chapter XXXIV demands more attention. He who is ignorant of history, and has come into no close contact with the organization and functioning of any state other than