The good man and the good; an introduction to ethics
Calkins, Mary Whiton, 1863-1930
l<ss©*<i»8««, «.i?'^ -^St : 1: ■ OJornell Inineraitg ffitbtatH attfaca, Neva ^atk BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 Date Due • i 21 -ai O.rf -v^ s .-TtTTrST IBllS^ k "OEIT .. j«MM» — tt , » WW»ri ^ Cornell University Library BJ1025 .C15 Good man and the good an, 'nffote'io" • olln 3 1924 028 960 710 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028960710 THE GOOD MAN AND THE GOOD Jheg^^o THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK ■ BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY ■ CALCUTTA MELBOURNi: THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA. Ltd. TORONTO THE GOOD MAN AND THE GOOD AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS BY MARY WHITON CALKINS AUTHOR OF " AN INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY," " A FIRST BOOK IN PSYCHOLOGY," " THE PERSISTENT PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY " 5Jpm fork THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1918 AU rights reserved A-^f3l?i CoPTBIOHT, 1918 bt the macmillan company Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1918. ■J p- MATRI CARISSIMAE CHARLOTTE WHITON CALKINS BONITATIS EXEMPLO DULCISSIMO PREFACE The underlying purpose of this book is to treat ethics as the study of live men — of willing, struggling human beings, loyal or disloyal, brave or cowardly, just or xm- Just. To state this purpose in other words: the book does not conceive ethics as a science of abstractions — of duty, goodness, virtue, or values — but as the science of the dutiful, the good, the virtuous man and his object. Thus concretely conceived, ethics is an inevitable outlet of psychology and an essential source of sociological science. Against one anticipated misconception it is perhaps permissible to guard in advance. Though the book has to do with 'the good man' it should not be set down as a 'subjectivistic' treatment of ethics. In one sense, to be sure, like aU genuinely ethical doctrine, it certainly is subjectivistic since the radiating centre of every moral, every religious — in truth, of every personal — situ- ation is an individual self. But though the book con- cerns the good man yet, as its title suggests, it also dis- cusses the good, the object of the good man's will. And this object it conceives in whoUy and imambiguously social terms. It is hoped that the serious 'general reader' as well as the coUege student, may find in the book some incentive to his thinking on problems of personal conduct and of social reconstruction. To meet the need of this busy VIU PREFACE reader the book is relatively short and untechnical though written with a painstaking effort for clear con- ception, accurate statement, and consistent terminology. There is, in truth, grave reason to fear lest important doctrines have been insufficiently reiterated. Accord- ingly the reader is begged to linger over definitions and formulations of theory, in particular over those of the earher chapters, since almost every paragraph presents a necessary step in the argiunent. Many pages would be needed adequately to record my thanks to those who have helped me in my study of ethics. My acknowledgments must be limited to those who have aided directly in the preparation of the book: to my mother and my father, first of all; to my friends and colleagues. Professors Mary S. Case and Eleanor A. McC. Gamble, expert critics, lavish of their time and their interest; and to one other — the brilliant, young sociologist, Carleton H. Parker, who throughout his life devoted his great gifts of eager scholarship, of keen judgment, and of himian fellowship to all who turned to him, to his friends, his students, the industrial workers whom he understood, the state and country which he served. A golden morning's conversation with him in a California garden is held in my grateful memory by one of the chapters of this book. Mary Whtton Calkins. MoTXNT Desert, July, 1918. CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE GOOD MAN AS ONE WHO ACKNOWLEDGES OBLIGATION PAGE I. The Nature of the Consciousness of Obligation ... 2 Conceived as (i) Elemental 3 (2) Neither elemental nor distinctive S (3) A distinctive complex 10 Which unites The feeling of being compelled; and The feeling of authoritativeness In the consciousness of self-compulsion. (Im- plying the consciousness of freedom to choose) 13 II. The Place of the Consciousness of Obligation in the Good Man's Experience 17 The moral experience not identical with the conscious- ness of obligation, for The consciousness of obligation is transitory 17 The consciousness of obligation terminates in an object 1 8 The object of the consciousness of obligation: willing the good 19 CHAPTER II THE GOOD MAN AS ONE WHO WILLS THE GOOD I. The Nature of the Willing Self: Related to environment 21 Active 22 Individualizing 23 ix X CONTENTS Forms of Will: page Simple wiU and choice 25 (Choice with and without effort) 26 Social and non-social will 28 Moral, immoral, and non-moral will 29 (Theories of the moral experience as non- volitional: (i) The good man as one who sympathizes 29 (2) The good man as one who approves or disapproves) 30 n. The Good: Distinguished from "good" 32 Willed for its own sake (ultimate) 33 Personal 34 Individual 35 (Answer to objections: This conception of the good Distinguishes the good man from the bad 37 Does not result in a subjective ethics) 38 CHAPTER in THE GOOD AS EGOIST AND ALTRUIST CONCEIVE IT I. Untechnical Statement of Egoism : 41 Altruism 42 II. Technical Discussion of Conceptions of the Good, Egoism: the identification of ' the good ' with oneself. ... 45 Altruism: the identification of 'the good' with another person, or with a group, excluding oneself 46 Universalism: the identification of 'the good' with the aU-including community 48 CHAPTER IV THE UNIVERSAL COMMUNITY AND THE INDIVIDUAL I. Loyalty to the Universal Community Psychologically Possible, for 51 (1) Social groups are individuated 52 CONTENTS xi PAGE e. g. The country 53 The church 54 (2) The object of moral loyalty widens 55 The Universal Community Not identical with state or federation 57 Yet a real object of loyalty 59 II. Loyalty to the Universal Community Compatible with True Individuation 60 CHAPTER V THE GOOD AS HEDONIST AND NON-HEDONIST CONCEIVE IT The Good, Qualitatively Conceived, as Pleasure I. (a) Basal principle: each virtue to further completeness of experience 86 (b) Methods: (i) Inciting instinctive tendencies (a practically neghgible method) 88 (2) Thwarting instinctive tendencies Indirectly; By modification, not by suppression 89 CONTENTS . xiii CHAPTER VII THE VIRTUOUS MAN (Continued) VIRTUES EITHER INDIVIDUAL OR SOCIAL PAGE No Exclusively Individual Virtues 92 Table of Virtues, Individual or Social, and of Parallel In- stinctive Tendencies 93 The Theitty Man and the Abstinent I. Thrift. The instinctive basis: appropriativeness 94 The contrasted vices: improvidence and over-acquisi- tiveness 95 The principle of control 96 The purpose of control: attainment of the good 98 II. Abstinence 99 The instinctive basis: the tendency to reject. The contrasted vices: over-acquisitiveness and im- moral lavishness 100 The purpose of abstinence. The Brave Man and the Prudent. I. Courage 102 The instinctive basis: daring. The methods of control Forms of courage 103 II. Prudence 105 The instinctive basis: withdrawal. The relation of prudence to timidity. (The place of thought in the virtuous life) 106 XIV CONTENTS CHAPTER VIII THE SOCIALLY VIRTUOUS MAN PAGE Table of the Inherently Social Virtues and Parallel Instinctive Tendencies io8 Virtues Correlated with the Mating and the Parental Instincts 109 The Truthtul Man. The instinctive basis of truth: communicativeness no The contrasted vices: untruthftilness and indiscretion. ... in Truthfulness the fundamental social virtue 112 Forms of untruthfulness 114 Lying, or explicit untruth. Deceit, or implicit imtruth Hypocrisy. The possible justification of jesting deceit 115 The sanctity of spoken truth. CHAPTER IX THE SOCIALLY VIRTUOUS MAN (Continued) THE JUST MAN The Nattole and the Basal Forms or Justice 119 I. Justice as form of personal approval or disapproval 120 Three basal characters of justice. (i) Sympathy 121 (2) Individualization 122 (3) Thought 123 II. Forms of justice 125 Egocentric and aUocentric. Concrete and abstract. Justice in Distribution 128 (Justice a constituent factor of every virtue.) I. Distributive justice as moral control of appropriating and surrendering instincts. CONTENTS . XV PAGE Distributive justice characterized by comparing thought 129 Hindrances to distributive justice: egoism and altruism. II. The most significant secondary object of distributive justice: property 130 Basis of property-holding: occupation 131 Forms of property: Gained through effortless occupation. Gained through effort 132 Principles of distributive justice: Every man to be treated as member of universal com- munity; therefore 133 No inherent individual right to property 134 Misconceptions of distributive justice As necessarily involving the abolition of private prop- erty. As a mechanical equalization of property 13 S Relation of distributive justice to law 136 Distinction, from the standpoint of justice, of the forms of property 137 Socialistic and individualistic theories of property. . . . 139 CHAPTER X THE SOCIALLY VIRTUOUS MAN (Concluded) The Generous Man. Generosity a sympathetic virtue 141 The nature of sympathy. Not identical with instinctive tenderness. Itself instinctive 142 The instinctive basis of generosity: surrender 144 The purpose of generosity 14S The two sets of contrasting vices: Over-lavishness and pusillanimity. Greed and aggressive rapacity 146 Sacrifice as culminating form of generosity i47 xvi CONTENTS PAGE The Contormer and the Non-contormer 148 Basal tendencies: imitation and opposition. I. Obedience as conformity furthering loyalty to the uni- versal community 149 Always unconditioned 150 Essential to social organization. Never an end in itself 152 To be distinguished from Involuntary non-moral conformity 153 Habitual Forced Immoral conformity 156 II. Virtuous non-conformity. To be distinguished from instinctive opposition 157 The Militant Man 158 The instinctive basis of militant virtue: pugnacity. The contrasting vices 159 Pusillanimity. Over-aggressiveness. Irascibility. Forms of militant virtue 160 The ethics of war 161 CHAPTER XI THE LOVER OF THE GOOD, THE LOVER OF THE BEAUTIFUL, AND THE LOVER OF GOD I. The Lover of the Beautiful 165 Resemblances of the good and the beautiful. Both are "ideal." Both are valued. Both are unified. Contrasts between the good and the beautiful 166 The good is personal; the beautiful impersonal. CONTENTS xvii PAGE The good is a related object; the beautiful an isolated object. The good is an object of will; the beautiful an object of emotion 167 II. The Lover of God 168 Resemblances of morality and religion: Both have a personal object 169 Both are 'private' experiences 170 Contrasts between moraUty and religion 171 The personal object of reUgion is greater than human The moral consciousness is necessarily, the religious consciousness not necessarily, voHtional 172 The fusion of religion with moraUty 173 NOTES NOTES TO CHAPTER I 1. Intuitionism 177 2. The element-theory of the obligation-consciousness 178 3. Conceptions of the feeling of obligation held by those who do not regard it as a distinctive experience. 4. The evolution of the moral consciousness 179 5. The consciousness of obUgation as a fusion. 6. The moral law 180 7. The consciousness of obligation conceived as realized com- pulsion of myself by myself. 8. The self as free 183 9. The object of the consciousness of obligation 185 NOTES TO CHAPTER II 1. The nature of the willing self 186 2. The conception of activity. 3. WiU and bodily movement 187 4. Customary as distinguished from moral conduct. xviu CONTENTS PAGE 5. Choice with and without effort. 6. Ethics as the study of the self who wills the good. 7. The conception of the moral consciousness as sympathy. 188 8. Eighteenth century morahsts 189 9. Westermarck's and Taylor's conception of the moral ex- perience as constituted by approval and disapproval. 10. "Good" as "valued," i. e. as willed or wished 191 11. The good as personal object which is (and ought to be) wiUed for its own sake. 12. The good and the good man 192 13. Ethics, psychology, and metaphysics. NOTES TO CHAPTER III 1. Egoism and Altruism 193 2. The self as inherently a social being 194 3. Loyalty. NOTES TO CHAPTER IV 1. The individual and the social group. 2. Supemational loyalty 196 3. Universal community and world-state. 4. Utilitarianism. 5. The individual and the state 197 6. The nature of individuality 198 7. Opposition within the community. NOTES TO CHAPTER V 1. Psychological hedonism. 2. Non-moral volitions not directed toward pleasure 199 3. Ethical hedonism. 4. Epicurus. 5. Mill's doctrine that pleasures differ qualitatively from each other. 6. The good, qualitatively regarded as full and complete de- sired experience 200 CONTENTS six NOTES TO CHAPTER VT PAGE 1. The utility of the study of ethics. 2. The conception of virtue. 3. Instinct and instinctive tendency 201 4. Virtue as a modification of instinctive tendencies 202 5. The inadequacy of ascetic ideals. NOTES TO CHAPTER VII 1. The impossibility of exclusively self -regarding virtues. 2. Instinctive appropriation 203 3. Thrift. 4. The instinctive tendency to reject. 5. Abstinence. 6. Courage. 7. The place of thought in the moral life. NOTES TO CHAPTER VIH 1. Chastity, marriage, the famUy 204 2. Gregariousness. 3. The truthful man. NOTES TO CHAPTER EX 'i. Justice as personal approval, disapproval. 2. History and theory of punishment 205 3. Spinoza on remorse and self-content 206 4. Aristotle's classification of justice. 5. Property holding. 6. Socialism and individuahsm. NOTES TO CHAPTER X 1. The nature of sjrmpathy 207 2. Sympathy as instinctive. 3. The virtue of generosity 208 4. The virtue of sacrifice. XX CONTENTS PAGE 5. The virtue of obedience. 6. Custom morality. 7. The instinct of pugnacity. 8. Pugnacity and war. NOTES TO CHAPTER XI 1. Aesthetics and ethics 209 2. The object of the religious consciousness as personal. 3. The privacy of the religious experience 210 4. The object of religion as superhuman. 5. MoraHty as fused with religion. THE GOOD MAN AND THE GOOD THE GOOD MAN AND THE GOOD CHAPTER I THE GOOD MAN AS ONE WHO ACKNOWLEDGES OBLIGATION What we most need to know about any man is surely this: whether he is good or bad. To be sure, we seldom put the question so crudely. Indeed we often affect a scorn for mere goodness, persuading ourselves that we are more concerned with a man's breeding, his intel- lectual vigor, his artistic skill or his practical efl&dency, but in the end we all admit, impHdtly or explicitly, that we are more deeply interested in his honesty, his courage and his justice — in a word, in his goodness — than in his intellectual or creative endowment, his up- bringing, or his possessions. All this amounts to saying that the most significant way of grouping human beings is as good or bad. Since the dawn of history and in all literatures we find traces of this classification. From our earliest childhood we make the distinction. Either privately or publicly we designate nearly every one with whom we come into close relation as good or bad; and we sometimes bring ourselves also under the same ruling. Very often this estimate of ourselves or of others is deeply tinged with emotion — often with passionate emotion of indignation, of reverence, of shame or of pride. In its early phases it is entirely unreflective. But as we grow older we often tend to contemplate from the 2 THE GOOD MAN detached, unemotional standpoint of the scientist this fundamental distinction of the good man from the bad. In adopting this scientific point of view we become students of ethics and at once make the baffling discovery that there are many divergent ways of describing the good man. Two of these are of paramount importance. A man is good, some moralists assert, in so far as he has and is guided by a consciousness of obligation — what is popularly called a "sense of duty." A man is good, other teachers insist, not as he is conscious of obligation but as he wills the good. To the considera- tion of the first of these theories of the moral self this chapter is devoted. I. The Nature of the Consciousness of Obligation There is little doubt that to most of us the outstand- ing feature of our moral experience is the feeling of ob- Kgation or duty in its various forms: the acute feeling of responsibility, the realization that "I ought" to lift this heavy burden or to renoimce this dear delight; the feeling of remorse, the bitter consciousness that I have not conformed to my "sense of duty"; or, finally, the kindred satisfaction in my conduct when it does square up with my awareness of duty. We have next, therefore, to inquire into the nature of this consciousness of obliga- tion. We shall consider successively the theory that the consciousness of obligation is an elemental experience; the objections to this theory; and, finally, what wiU be called the two-seM theory of the consciousness of obliga- tion. We are to consider the meaning of the expression "I CHAPTER I. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF OBLIGATION 3 ought" in contexts such as the following: "I ought to give to the Red Cross the money saved for a trip to California"; "I ought to elect the course in logic in place of the new course in contemporary philosophy"; "I ought to leave this letter unanswered even if it costs me the man's friendship." Precisely what, in such a complex experience, constitutes my consciousness of duty, of obKgation? Or, to state this differently: how does such an experience differ from the consciousness that it is wise or expedient to give away the money, to take the course or to leave the letter unwritten? Wherein, exactly, does the feeling of ought, of duty differ from the consciousness of expediency? (i) Many people, faced with this question, however phrased, find it imanswerable. The consciousness of duty, they say, is as positive, as distinctive, and as poign- ant an experience as unhappiness or sympathy or sensa- tion of redness; but like these other modes of conscious- ness it is indefinable. It can no more be described to any one who lacks it than seeing red or blue can be described to a man born blind or smelling mignonette to a man insensitive to odors. To feel that I ought is, in the same way, an indescribable though a very vivid experience. I may know that I ought to do this or that, in other words, may be able to indicate the occasions or situations in which I feel obKgation; but, though I im- questionably have the consciousness "I ought," I simply can not tell what further it is. I feel that I ought — there is nothing more to be said about it. With this conclusion of the everyday man, that it is not possible to say what one means by "I ought," 4 THE GOOD MAN many writers on ethics, upholders of what may be called the "element theory," fuUy agree though on other points they differ much among themselves. The con- sciousness of obligation seems, on this view, indescrib- able precisely because elemental. Description involves analysis into elements, as when one describes a fabric as red, soft, heavy, and lustrous; but elemental charac- ters are themselves indescribable; and my feeling of ob- ligation, like my feeling of redness, if elemental is cer- tainly a further indefinable consciousness. The writers to whom reference has just been made aflSrm this elemental character of the duty-consciousness. Thus the great German moralist, Kant, is never tired of maintaining that the consciousness of obligation (in his terms, the "categorical imperative") is a "datum," an "inexplicable fact." * To the same purport, Gizycki declares that "the feeling of duty is a fact, an ultimate foundation" t; in our own day, Simmel, one of the most unsparing of the critics of Kantian ethics, says that there is no definition of ought; f finally, one at least of modem utilitarians — Henry Sidgwick — ^plainly states that the notion of 'ought' or 'right' "is too ele- mentary to admit of any formal definition." § Earliest of the forms of this element-theory is intuitionism," ^ 1 1 the * " Kritik of Practical Reason," Bk. I., Chap. I. (Cf. "Kritik of Pure Reason," A., pp. 547 S., B., pp. 575 flE.) t "Moralphilosophie," p. 123. J "Enleitung in die Moralwissenschaft," Chap. I., p. 8. § "The Methods of Ethics," Bk. I., Chap. III., § 3. 1 1 These numerical exponents, beginning anew in each chapter refer throughout to the Notes at the end of the book. CHAPTER I. TEtE CONSCIOUSNESS OF OBLIGATION 5 traditional conception of conscience as not merely ele- mental but also primitive and instinctive, or xmtaught. This theory, common to many moralists from Butler to Martineau, is especially significant in that it usually though not inevitably argues the validity and the au- thority of duty from the instinctiveness of the con- sciousness of it. It is however important to realize that intuitionism is one form only of the element- theory ^ : in other words, that one may be an elemen- talist and not an intuitionist, may regard the conscious- ness of obligation as indefinable while yet one considers it as rising late in experience and does not claim for it special validity or authority. (2) We shall next consider the objections hotly urged against this doctrine that the feeling of obligation is a piurely elemental experience to be accepted without further question as we accept the fact that we see yellow, or hear noise. The opponents of this view point out, in the first place, that the feeling "I ought," unlike the admittedly elemental "seeing yeUow" with which we have compared it, has no specific stimulus or object. Every normal person sees yellow when he looks at squashes or sunflowers, or (in terms of the physical stimulus) when ether waves at the rate of about five hundred and twenty-five trillion per second excite his retina. But the situations in which diverse people feel obligation differ as widely as acid from al- kali. These differences become especially evident when we compare with each other men of different civiliza- tions, and still more evident in the comparison of the so-called civilized with the primitive type. Darwin's 6 THE GOOD MAN famous chapter on the Moral Sense ofifers an excellent instance of an apparently vivid sense of obligation di- rected to an object utterly repellent to us. He quotes from Lamont the story of a West Australian who, in spite of weU grounded fear of punishment by the British magistrate, kiUed a woman of a distant tribe "to satisfy his sense of duty to his wife" who had died of a linger- ing disease and, in his belief, through sorcery exerted by one of the enemy tribe. Similar instances could be multiplied; yet there is, in truth, no need of anthropo- logical or even of historical study to assure ourselves of the great divergence, even among persons similarly cir- cumstanced, as regards the specific conduct which each conceives as his duty. Thus, one man is as ardently con- vinced of his obUgation to vote a straight ticket as an- other of his duty to scrutinize every candidate's record; and one man is as certain that he ought to give to him that asketh as another that he ought to discourage pub- lic begging. In a word, there is no gainsaying the oc- currence of expHdt differences in moral ideals; and these certainly mark off the consciousness of obligation from the sensationally elemental experiences which arise as it were mechanically and imiversaUy, in a given situa- tion, the same for every one. And yet the occurrence of these differences in duty- feeling does not tell decisively against the distinctive- ness and consequent homogeneity of the moral con- sciousness. The conscious experience, the inner feel- ing, of the Australian, sickening and pining under his sense of unfulfilled duty, does not differ from that of the martyr who, shrinking from the arena, is yet swayed CHAPTER I. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF OBLIGATION ^ by his overpowering sense of obligation to hold the faith. For what varies from man to man, from social group to social group, from age to age, is not the con- sciousness of obligation but its object. Men feel the same "ought" though it is directed to such different objects. Accordingly this first assault upon the dis- tinctiveness of the feeh'ng of duty must be abandoned. Another objection to the avowal of a characteristic and imdefinable consciousness of obligation is the fact that we often encoimter people, chiefly ethical theorists but, here and there, reflective, everyday people who insist that they never feel obligation, do not know the meaning of the word "duty," never, in a word, have the "I ought" consciousness. These persons of course use the phrase; but "I ought to do it" means to them, they insist, no more than "I would better" or "I am afraid not to do it"; and "duty" means no more than expediency.^ Now it is psychologically possible that these people lack, while others of us have, the conscious- ness of obligation; and yet there certainly is an ante- cedent improbability that human beings should differ so profoundly. Accordingly, moralists of this type believing that they find in themselves no elemental sense of duty challenge the accuracy of the self-observa- tion which has led other people to avow an elemental feeling of oughtness. These anti-elementalists frankly declare themselves incredulous of the occurrence in any one's experience of an elemental or even of a distinctive consciousness of obligation. Rather, they hold, this alleged elemental " I ought " experience is a complex an- ticipation, tinged with emotion; it is a consciousness a THE GOOD MAN of future advantage, a prevision of a happier outcome, or else the shrinking from possible harm. In other words, according to this view, when I say "I ought to do this" I really mean either "I expect to be re- warded if I achieve it" or else "I am afraid of what will happen, either to me or to some one whom I care for, if I don't do it." This anti-elementalist conception (as we are calling it) of the nature of the feeling of oughtness is often combined with an evolutionary accoimt of the rise and growth of the feehng.^ The consciousness of obligation, according to this doctrine, is a plant of slow growth developed gradually from a clearly and primi- tively emotional experience. Thus, according to Her- bert Spencer, the consciousness of obligation grows out of the fear of being punished by one's chief, by one's fellows, or by one's god. This argument, it must at once be admitted, certainly teUs against the intuitionistic forms of elementalism which maintain the ready-made innateness and unde- rivedness of the feeling of duty. In opposition to these CHAPTER I. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF OB^^IGATION Q views Darwin, Spencer and the rest may indeed have shown that the consciousness of obligation, far from flashing out, like lightning in a clear sky, is the conse- quence of preceding experiences, emotional in character. But to prove that a given experience is uniformly pre- ceded, and even conditioned, by a certain set of emotions is far from proving that it, too, is an emotion of the same nature. Therefore the fact that the feehng of obliga- tion appears later than the fear of gods and rulers, but in similar situations, would not disprove the unique character of the feeling of obKgation when once it occurs. In Rashdall's words, if we "suppose (to put the matter in an extreme way) that Socrates was the first man who ever definitely conceived and was influenced by the idea of duty, that will not alter the fact that such a no- tion did exist in the mind of Socrates and in many men since." (It is only fair to add that modem anthropologi- cal research tends to discredit the negative premise of the evolutionary argument, that primitive men do not have a imique consciousness of obligation. More and more, students are discarding the old conception of the mind of primitive man and of savage as radically different from the mind of the civilized adult and are regarding primitive man and savage as child-men, not inherently different from us in sense-endowment, in intellectual capacity, or even in moral attitude, but differing from us primarily in their blank ignorance of innumerable things, facts of history and of science, which are the common inheritance of civilized men. This conception, with its suggestion of caution in the formulation of "evolutionary" theories, seems to be borne out by a lO THE GOOD MAN tale quoted by Westermarck,* of a young Australian who, during his initiation, refused to eat a prohibited opossum, and who repHed to the tempting suggestion "You might eat if the old men were not there" by the words "I could not do that, it would not be right.") (3) It has thus appeared that no one of these argu- ments against it decisively challenges the element theory of the obligation feeling: the fact that some people claim to be without a consciousness of "ought" may be at- tributed either to their faulty introspection or to mental defect or else may be accepted as a mark of the indi- viduality of the obHgation-consciousness; differences in ideals are rightly described as distinctions in the object not in the content of the "sense of duty"; and the evolutionary theory of the rise of the obligation- consciousness is compatible with an elementalist con- ception of its nature. But from quite another quarter rises an objection to this doctrine that my consciousness of duty is an ele- mental and indescribable experience. More careful scrutiny discloses it as a reaUy analyzable though a very distinctive complex.^ Just as by fixed attention one can hear overtones in a clang which at first seems per- fectly simple, so one finds in the awareness of obliga- tion, which at first seemed so unitary and irreducible, at least two essential and closely fused experiences. The first of these is the intense and oppressive feeling of being forced or compelled. To feel obHgation is to feel * "The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas," I., 118. Quoted by Westermarck from Fison and Hewitt, "Kamilaroi and Kurnai," pp. 256 seq. CHAPTER I. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF OBLIGATION II compulsion; a duty is a burden to be bome. There is little need to dwell on this factor of the consciousness of duty for it is admitted by everybody — even by those writers who try to banish the concept of obligation from ethics. Thus, Guyau,* in the book in which he sketches a "morality without obligation," implies that obliga- tion is equivalent to "iaterior pressure"; and Taylor, while he denies any specific feeling of obligation, reducing it to the consciousness of what I am "expected" to do, yet constantly alludes to it as "a strong, compulsive influence." f To be conscious that I ought is, then, to feel myself, ia some sense, under compulsion. In truth, everybody who believes himself to know the meaning of "I ought" wiU acknowledge the accuracy of this statement. It is illustrated ia the common figure of the moral hfe as obedience to "moral law," ia St. Paul's description of the moral self as a bondman to the law, in the sense which almost everybody has, at times, of impulses and passions and desires as opposed and dominated by the inexorable authority of the Moral Imperative. But this consciousness of being compelled is one factor only of the complex feeling of obligation. For, paradoxical as it seems, I realize not only compulsion but also freedom and activity in my experience of duty. The moment of performing my duty, of being true to my obHgation, is a moment of supreme freedom and * "Esquisse d'une Morale sans Sanction et sans Devoir," Livre II., Chap. I. t "The Problem of Conduct," p. 355. Cf. H. Spencer, "Data of Ethics," Chap. VII., § 46. 12 THE GOOD MAN seK-expression. The man of duty is the free man; the moral law is a law of liberty; in a word, the conscious- ness of obligation, though a feeling of compulsion, differs absolutely from the bare awareness of being coerced by a mightier being — ^by father, chief, ruler, God, or impersonal power. This discovery seems, however, to involve us in a hopeless impasse. For how, it may well be asked, is it possible to feel at the same time both boimd and free, both coerced and active, both dominated and authori- tative? The reply to this question is found in the ob- servation that each one of us, so far from being a simple, homogeneous being, is a highly complex and differ- entiated self of the most diverse and contradictory moods and purposes or (as many writers prefer to state it) a hierarchy of many partial selves within an including total-self. There is no need to expand this view at length for everybody has the experience. As parts of my very self I find a strenuous and a frivolous self (or purpose), a pitjdng and a censorious self, a student self and a practical self. In the words of the old song: "Within my earthly temple there's a crowd. There's one of us that's humble, one that's proud; There's one that's broken-hearted for his sins And one that, unrepentant, sits and grins." And the song ends quaintly with the reflection that "From much corroding care I should be free If once I could determine which is me." The truth is that all these partial selves belong to me and, though no one of them is completely identical with CHAPTER I. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF OBLIGATION 13 me, I, the central including self, may identify myself with any or all of them. Thus, the experience of obliga- tion is my consciousness of myself (as identified with one of the conflicting purposes or selves within me) being dominated, coerced, commanded, not by an ex- ternal authority but by myself (as identified with yet another of these partial selves, or purposes). It makes little difference whether the coerced and coercing aspects of me be called purposes or partial selves; whether the dominating self be conceived with St. Paul as the "spirit," or with Kant as the "noumenal ego," or with Freud as the " censor. " In any case the consciousness of obligation is the experience of self-compulsion. And the explanation of the paradoxical combination in the moral experience of the seemingly inconsistent factors of sub- mission and freedom Hes precisely herein: in the fact that the law to which I submit is neither an inexorable nature-law, or uniformity, nor yet an external social law — the imposition of another's will — ^but is, rather, the law, the imperative which I, as ruling self, impose on myself, as compelled seH.^ In Wordsworth's phrase and in literal sense, I am a "willing bondsman," and I "commend" myself "unto the guidance" of a Duty which is imposed by my own deepest purpose. Besides being conscious of myself as an authoritative, active, and (in this sense) "free" self, I may also be con- scious that I am free in a second sense — free to take sides with one or with another of the conflicting pur- poses, or partial selves, within me. This freedom to choose must be sharply distinguished from the freedom, meaning the authoritativeness, of the self. It is a gen- 14 THE GOOD MAN uine capacity to will one thing or the opposite. If, for example, Abraham Lincobi was free, in this sense, he might have decided not to sign the emancipation proc- lamation; and if I am thus free I may decide either to priat or not to print this chapter which I am writing. Metaphysicians bring up many weighty arguments to show that men really do not possess such freedom of choice, that they are, on the contrary, bound by their heredity, or their environment (or, as theistic phil- osophers assert, by the will of God) to certain volitions and ways of acting. Granting his upbringing, his political afiiliations, the platform on which he was elected, Abraham Lincoln, these philosophers insist, must have wiUed as he actually did will. But the philosophical ques- tion whether or not I reaUy am free to will what I regard as my duty has no bearing on the undisputed fact that when I am conscious of duty, correctly or incorrectly, I believe myself free either to do this duty or to leave it undone. As surely as I am conscious of obligation, as certainly as I feel that I ought, I also feel myself free to choose. Apparently it is impossible that anyone should take the law-giving attitude toward any person or purpose which seems to be determined. In Sidg- wick's words: "When I have a distinct consciousness of choosing between alternatives of conduct, one of which I conceive as right ... I find it impossible not to think that I can now choose to do what I so conceive."* Thus a man is conscious, in the experience of feeling obligation, of two sorts of freedom. When, for instance, he realizes that he ought to decline an invitation to * "The Methods of Ethics," Bk. I., Chap. V., § 3. CHAPTER I. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF OBUGATION 1 5 Tristan and Isolde in order to correct French themes, he is (i) immediately conscious of himself as free in the sense of dominating the musical and gayety-loving part of himself; and he is (2) reflectively if not im- mediately conscious of himself as free in the other sense also, free to choose between the musical self's and the theme-reading self's purpose. Such freedom to choose may be, as the determinists argue, an illusion, but the consciousness of freedom to choose — whether or not corresponding with any real freedom — certainly accompanies the feeling of obligation. It is worthy of note that this double-self theory, just outhned, of the consciousness of obligation, harmonizes the claims of the other theories. It obviously satisfies both the main requirement of the element-theory and the unquestionably preponderant testimony of every-day people who are sure that the heavy consciousness of duty, the inexorable gnawing of remorse, the overwhelming flood of repentance are absolutely distinctive experiences differing utterly from fear of consequences or anticipa- tion of benefit. For the double-self theory emphasizes both the reality and the distinctive quaHty of the aware- ness of obligation by treating it as an especially imique and distinctive complex of experiences usually disjoined — the consciousness of being at one and the same time commanded and commander, bound and free, coerced and at liberty. And yet, though it thus emphasizes the imiqueness of the obligation-consciousness, the double- self theory also agrees with the critics of the element- theory in denying the absolutely elemental character of the so-called sense of duty. Furthermore, the two- 1 6 THE GOOD MAN seK theory is strengthened by the evolutionist's account of the rise of the feeling of duty. For precisely the sort of consciousness of compulsion which one feels at a pre- moral stage toward one's chief or one's god one feels in the moral experience of the lower self's obligation to the higher, law-giving self. The feeling of bondage characterizes both experiences, but when subordina- tion to external authority is replaced by the aware- ness of my lower self as compelled by my higher, there springs up naturally the imier activity and self-assertion that invariably distinguish the consciousness of duty. In conclusion, a few words must be said concerning the further analysis of the consciousness of obKgation, described in the preceding pages as a man's conscious- ness of himself as coerced or dominated, not by another, but by himself. Obviously, such an experience is very complex and must include the most diverse factors. Thus, the consciousness of obligation certaialy includes the two sorts of affective consciousness, for every one dislikes the feeling of being compelled and, conversely, enjoys the feeling of authoritativeness. The obligation- consciousness must, furthermore, include the organic sensations characteristic of the pleasurable and the un- pleasant experiences — the pressure sensations included in what we call the "heavy" consciousness of duty to be fulfilled or the sensations of heat and soreness which belong to remorseful feeling. Frequently, also, if not always, the consciousness of approval or disapproval will be involved in my consciousness of obHgation and this, as will later be shown,* includes both emotion * Cf. Chap. IX, pp. I20 ff. CHAPTER I. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF OBLIGATION 1 7 and comparing thought. Finally the experience of dominating and commanding is volitional consciousness, or will. It is unnecessary to our present purpose to carry this analysis into greater detaU, for the next chapter will compare emotion with will; and the essen- tials of the obKgation-consciousness are all summed up in the phrase awareness of myself as dominated by my- self. n. The Place of the Consciousness of Obligation in the Good Man's Experience Our main problem, it will be remembered, is to know who is the good man and wherein his goodness consists. In particular we are attempting to decide the place of the feeling of obKgation in the good man's consciousness. And the outcome of our study, to this point, is to dis- credit the skepticism of those who deny the occurrence of a genuine experience of duty and, on the other hand, to emphasize the distinctiveness, the poignancy and the significance of the consciousness of duty as factor of the moral life. But we have yet to test the adequacy of the doctrine that the moral life, the characteristic experience of the good man, consists solely and exclu- sively in his consciousness of duty. Two considerations challenge this identification of the moral experience with the duty-consciousness. In the first place it is perfectly apparent that the obligation-consciousness is not a constant factor of the moral experience. In Spencer's words: "the sense of duty is transitory and will diminish as fast as moralization increases." * He * "The Data of Ethics," Chap. VII., § 46. 1 8 THE GOOD MAN who conforms to his sense of duty will soon find him- self willing, without consciousness of obligation, what, at first, he willed with heavy sense of inner compulsion; he who obeys the moral law imposed upon him by his own higher self is less and ever less conscious of his lower impulses as battling against this higher law. In a word, to grow morally stronger and more mature is to become a more unified and a less divided self. With the fixed habit of willing the good, the occasions for that "mortal moral strife," in which alone the feeling of duty asserts itself, grow less frequent; and ever more simply and inevitably, with ever less conflict, a man wills the good. Yet it would surely be absurd to assert that a man grows less and less good as, on these higher levels of experience, he more and more infrequently has the consciousness of lower and higher seK opposed to each other in the obligation-experience. There is, however, an even more important objection to the doctrine that the moral experience consists solely and simply in the duty-consciousness. Such a view is made impossible by the fact that the consciousness of duty is an obviously incomplete experience never ter- minating in itself and always leading beyond itself. 