A Handbook of Ethical Theory Part 7

Evidently the intention--the whole object--gives some revelation of the character of a man. Many men may will to avoid the mud; but not all of these can will to avoid it by stepping upon a fellow-man.

47. MOTIVE.--The stepping upon a fellow-man with whom one is on good terms can scarcely be regarded as a thing desirable in itself. If it is desired, it is because of the complex in which it is an element. Some other element or elements may exert the whole attractive force which moves desire and will. In other words, some things are chosen for the sake of others.

When we have discovered that for the sake of which any object is chosen, we have come upon the _Motive_. The intention may be said to embrace the whole object as foreseen. The motive embraces only a part of it, but the vital part, the part without which the object would not be desired and willed.

48. ETHICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF INTENTION AND MOTIVE.--There has been much dispute among moralists as to the ethical significance of intention and motive. Bentham maintains that "from one and the same motive, and from every kind of motive, may proceed actions that are good, others that are bad, and others that are indifferent." He gives the following ill.u.s.tration: [Footnote: _Principles of Morals and Legislation_, chapter x, Sec 3.]

"1. A boy, in order to divert himself, reads an inspiring book; the motive is accounted, perhaps, a good one; at any rate, not a bad one. 2.

He sets his top a-spinning: the motive is deemed at any rate not a bad one. 3. He sets loose a mad ox among a crowd: his motive is now, perhaps, termed an abominable one. Yet in all three cases the motive may be the very same: it may be neither more nor less than curiosity."

In criticizing this citation I must point out that curiosity is not, properly speaking, an object of choice at all. I have used the word "object" to indicate what is chosen, not to indicate the psychic fact present at the time of the choice. And I have said that the motive is the vital part of the object.

Hence curiosity should not be called the motive. No man chooses curiosity as an object, either in the abstract or in the concrete. Curiosity is a fundamental impulse of human nature; we may elect to satisfy the impulse in any given instance; in other words, we may choose the appropriate object.

In the case of the boy letting loose the bull in the crowd, the object is to see what will happen under the given circ.u.mstances. This is what appeals to the boy. Something else might have appealed to him in performing the action. He might have had the deliberate wish to injure certain persons present against whom he harbored resentment. Or his sympathies might have been with the bull, which had been the victim of bad treatment, and to which he wished to grant its liberty. Were the crowd in question a band of ruffians intent upon lynching, he might have been moved by the desire to a.s.sist, in a somewhat irregular way, in the re-establishment of law and order. But even if his real object is only to see what will happen, there is no reason to put it on a par with the object in view when a boy spins a top. "To see what will happen" is the vaguest of phrases, and covers a mult.i.tude of disparate objects. He who does things to see what will happen has, at least, a very general knowledge of the kind of thing likely to happen, if a given experiment is made. A boy does not hold his finger in the candle-flame to see what will happen. He who does things to see what will happen, in really complete ignorance of what is likely to happen, may be set down as too much of a fool to be the subject of moral judgments.

It is obvious that an act may be done with many different objects in view--I mean real objects, motives. I give money to a beggar whose case is one to inspire pity. My motive, my "vital" object, may be to relieve the man. But it may equally well be to get rid of him, to gratify my self-feeling by becoming the dispenser of bounty, or to inspire admiration in the onlooker. The intention, as I have used the word above, is to relieve the beggar, with such consequences of the act as may be foreseen at the time. Within the limits of this intention, the motive may vary widely, and may, in a given instance, be either admirable or contemptible.

It may be claimed, in answer to this, that the real intention is, in every case, what I have called the motive; that, in the first case, it was to relieve suffering; in the second, to get rid of an annoyance; in the third to satisfy vanity; in the fourth, to be admired.

The word "intention," thus used, is equivalent to "motive." Popular usage gives some sanction to this confusion of the words. We say of a man who has done a questionable act: "His intentions were good," or, "His motives were good." Still, popular usage does not always regard the two expressions as equivalent. To revert to the case of the unhappy Flex. It does not seem inappropriate to say that the use of a man as a stepping- stone was a part of his master's intention. It does appear inappropriate to call it the motive or a part of the motive of the whole transaction.

Intention and motive are convenient words to designate the whole object chosen and the part of the object which accounts for the choice of the whole. That it is important to distinguish between the two is palpable.

The intention gives some indication of character. We know something about a man when we know what kinds of objects he will probably set before himself as aims. But we know more when we know why he chooses these objects rather than others; when we can a.n.a.lyze the complex and can discover just what elements in it attract him.

With an increase of our knowledge comes an increased power of control.

Until we know a man's motives, we do not really know the man; and until we know the man, our efforts to influence him must be rather blind.

The search for motives appears to carry us in the direction of the systematization and simplification of the embarra.s.sing wealth of objects which are actually the goal of human desires and volitions. Man may desire a boundless variety of objects. His motives in desiring them may, conceivably, be comparatively few.

It should be apparent that both intention and motive have ethical significance. We have our opinion of men capable of harboring certain intentions. But we recognize that some men may harbor them with better motives than others. And we can see that a man's intention may be bad, and yet his motive, considered in itself, be good. How we are to rate the man, morally, becomes rather a nice question.

CHAPTER XV

FEELING AS MOTIVE

49. FEELING. [Footnote: See the notes on this chapter at the end of this volume.]--Two men may recognize with equal clearness the presence of a danger. That recognition may evoke in the one a violent emotion of fear, and in the other little or no emotion. Two men may be treated with indignity. The one fumes with rage; the other remains calm. It is well recognized that men may be susceptible to emotion in general, or to certain specific emotions, in varying degrees. Knowledge is not always accompanied by a marked manifestation of emotion. Thoughts may be clear, but cold. There are, however, natures whose intellectual processes are steeped in emotion. Such men live in an atmosphere of agitation.

Lists of the emotions which correspond to the instincts and fundamental impulses of man have been drawn up. In them we find mentioned fear, disgust, wonder, anger, elation, tender feeling, and so forth; phenomena which, by earlier writers, were cla.s.sified as "pa.s.sions," and to which we may conveniently give the name "feeling." We constantly speak of our emotions as our "feelings," and we contrast the man of feeling with the coldly intellectual mind in which emotion is at a minimum.

But it is not alone to such specific emotions as those above-mentioned that we apply the term feeling. Thoughts are agreeable or disagreeable, pleasurable or painful. So are emotions. The agreeableness or disagreeableness, pleasantness or painfulness, which are the accompaniments of thoughts and emotions, have been called by modern psychologists their feeling-tone. It is not out of harmony with common usage to give them the name of feelings. In so doing we contrast them with knowledge and a.s.similate them to emotion.

Whether every sensation and every thought gives rise to an emotion of some sort is matter for dispute, as is also the question whether every sensation, thought and emotion is tinged with some degree of pleasurable or painful feeling. In the absence of conclusive evidence, it is open to us to a.s.sume that some feeling is always present where there is mental activity of any kind. The feeling may be so faint and evanescent as to escape detection, but this does not prove that it is absent.

50. FEELING AND ACTION.--Emotions and feelings of pleasure and pain are the normal accompaniments of the exercise of the instincts and impulses of creatures that desire and will. Within limits, we appear to be able to take them as an index of the strength of the desire and the vigor of the effort at attainment.

An act of cruelty is perpetrated. I see it, and it leaves me, perhaps, cold and unmoved. In such case, it is hardly expected of me that I should take energetic measures to have the evil-doer punished. The man whose face flushes, whose brows descend, whose teeth come together, whose fists clench, whose heart beats thickly, at the recognition of an insult, is, as a rule, the man from whom we look for vigorous efforts at retaliation.

The apathetic creature who _feels_ no resentment is usually expected to swallow the indignity. The child who jumps for joy at the sight of a new doll is supposed to desire it eagerly, and to be ready to make efforts to obtain it.

But it is only within limits that this relation between feeling and action holds. Men of little emotion may be resolute and prompt to action.

Their desires, as evinced by their actions, may be persistent and effective. Nor need the individual fix his choice upon the particular object that arouses in him the most feeling. A man may see his fellow- creature dest.i.tute, and may shed tears over his pitiable lot. But he will not bequeath his money to him. He will leave it to his son, for whom, perhaps, he has no respect and has come to have little affection. And he may leave it to him with regret, knowing that it will be dissipated in ways which he cannot approve. It has been pointed out with justice that the exercise of many instincts may be accompanied with little feeling; and we are all aware of the fact that, as action becomes habitual, emotion tends to evaporate and the pleasure of effort and attainment is apt to be reduced to a minimum.

51. FEELING AS OBJECT.--It is well to keep in mind the distinction between feeling as a psychic fact present in the mind of the creature desiring and willing, and feeling as the object of desire and will. A man in a rage is the victim of a storm of feeling. The thought of the injury he has received and the desire for retaliation by no means exhaust the contents of his mind. But the pa.s.sion which shakes him is not his _object_; that object is revengeful action.

Nevertheless, feeling may be made the object of desire and will. One may attend a religious or political meeting with the deliberate view of arousing in one's self certain complex emotions. Poe's gruesome tales are read for the sake of the thrill which is produced by the perusal.

Probably the desire for excitement, for the experiencing of certain vivid emotions, has no little to do with the attraction exercised by certain criminal professions. The burglar desires the booty, but he may desire something more.

Emotions have, as we have seen, their "tone" of pleasure or pain. They are agreeable or the reverse, and it is palpable that men do not, as a rule, deliberately make them the object of desire and will in indifference to the fact that they are pleasant or are painful. We do not normally wish to attain to states of mind in which remorse plays a prominent part; we do not aim to revel in shame; we do not seek to be haunted with fear. Pleasurable emotions are desired, where desire is set on emotions at all; and painful emotions are regarded by the mind as unwelcome guests. At any rate, this appears to be the rule, and to characterize the man whom we regard as normal.

This being the case, it seems natural to ask whether, when we embrace the _intention_ of producing in ourselves a given emotion, our _motive_ may not be narrower in scope, namely, the attainment of pleasure? and, when we wish to rid the mind of any emotion, our _motive_ may not be the avoidance of pain?

The adoption of this view would give to the feelings of pleasure and pain a unique importance. They would be accepted as the only ultimate objects of desire and will. By many they have been thus accepted. It has been insisted that objects of every description are chosen only as they arouse some feeling; and that those which promise pleasant feeling are sought and those which entail pain are avoided. The general recognition of the primacy of pleasure and pain over our other feelings, over the specific emotions mentioned above, is indicated by the fact that ethical writers of eminence sometimes make pleasure and pain synonymous with feeling in general, pa.s.sing over other feelings, as though it were not important for the moralist to take them into consideration. The dispute whether the proper course for human action to take is prescribed by reason or is dictated by feeling often resolves itself into the problem whether we should be guided by reason, or by a consideration of pleasure to be attained or pain to be avoided.

52. FREEDOM AS OBJECT.--The acceptance of pleasure and pain as the ultimate motives of human action seems, at first sight, to be of inestimable a.s.sistance to us in threading our way through the labyrinth of diverse choices made by creatures that desire and will.

But only at first sight. Even if it be true that every creature seeks only to attain pleasure and to avoid pain, and uses the means it finds to hand in the attainment of these ends, the endless diversity of the means remains as a thing to reckon with. The knowledge that all men desire pleasure does not help us a whit in dealing with men, unless we know what things will give pleasure to this man or to that. All men may desire pleasure; but it remains true that what gives pleasure to the spendthrift gives pain to the miser; what appeals to the glutton disgusts a man of refined tastes. If all men were alike and precisely alike, and if their natures were very simple and remained unchanged, the problem of the distribution of pleasures would be vastly simplified.

Whether the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain may be regarded as the only ultimate ends proper to man will be discussed later.

[Footnote: See chapter xxv.] Here, it is important to insist that so general a formula gives us little useful information touching the set of the will either of cla.s.ses of men or of individuals. This we can attain to only as a result of the study of the complex nature of man as revealed in the choices which he actually makes. The ends of man are many and various; some of these ends are accidental, palpably means for the attainment of other ends more fundamental, and for them other means of attaining the same ends may be subst.i.tuted. But other ends, and they are by no means to be reduced to a single cla.s.s, appear to belong to the very nature of man. In seeking them he is giving expression to the impulses which make him what he is.

In so far as these impulses find an unimpeded expression the man is free; otherwise he is under restraint. Without rendering here a final decision upon the importance of the role played in human life by pleasure and pain, one feels impelled to ask the question whether the goal of a man's endeavors may not best be described as _freedom_? Not freedom in the abstract, freedom to do anything and everything, but freedom to live the life appropriate to him as man, and as a man of a given type. That this freedom is limited in a variety of ways, by his material environment, by the clas.h.i.+ng of impulses within himself, by the conflict of his desires with the will of the social organism in which he finds his place, is sufficiently palpable.

CHAPTER XVI

RATIONALITY AND WILL

53. THE IRRATIONAL WILL.--As dreams do not consist of an insignificant medley of elements drawn from the experiences of waking life, but, in spite of their fantastic character, bear some semblance of ordered reality, so the impulses of even the most unintelligent and inconsequent of human beings are not wholly chaotic, but differ only in the degree of their organization from those of the most rational and far-seeing.

Where there is even a glimmer of intelligence, ends are recognized and means to their attainment are chosen. Ends are compared, and the preference is given to some over others. But, with all this, there may be much incoherence and planlessness. Men can live somehow without looking far into the future, or keeping well in mind the lessons to be learned from the past. They can manage to exist in the face of no little short- sighted impulsiveness and inconsistency. But it is palpable that they cannot, under such circ.u.mstances, live as they might live were they more truly rational.

The individual deficient in foresight and control may, it is true, be carried along and defended from disaster by the presence of these qualities in the greater organism of which he is a part. The infant is a parasite upon society; it is provided for independently of its own efforts. The child would soon come to grief were its ends not chosen by others and its conduct kept under control. And a vast number of persons not children are in much the same position. There is foresight and rational purpose somewhere; they profit by it; but of foresight and rational purpose they themselves possess but a modic.u.m.

Where breadth of view is lacking, where the future is unforeseen or ignored and the past is forgotten, where desires arise and impel to action in relative independence of one another, the man seeks today what tomorrow he rejects. We can scarcely say that the man chooses. He is the scene of independent choices, varied and inconsistent. He is the victim of caprice, and appears to us largely the creature of accident, a prey to the impulse which happens to be in his mind at the moment. From such a man we cannot look for an adherence to distant aims, and the marshalling of the proper means to their attainment. He cannot count upon himself, and he cannot be counted upon. That he can play no significant role in such stable organizations as the state and church is obvious. His desires may be many and varied, but they converge upon no one end. We set him down as irrational.

54. ONE VIEW OF REASON.--Concerning the part played by reason or intelligence in the active life of man there has been no little dispute.

It has been maintained, on the one hand, that reason or intelligence serves its whole purpose in holding before the mind all its impulses and desires, revealing their interrelations, and making possible an enlightened and deliberate choice from among them. Where the horizon is thus extended and mental clarity reigns, the attention can roam unimpeded over the whole field, consider the objects of desire in their true relations and compare them with one another. Congruous desires can reinforce each other; conflicting desires can be brought face to face, and the one or the other can deliberately be dismissed; fundamental and dominant desires may a.s.sert their supremacy, and give their stamp to far- reaching decisions which exercise a control over minor decisions and favor or repress a mult.i.tude of desires and volitions.

The attainment of perfect rationality in this sense is an ideal never completely realized. No man can hold before his mind all his impulses and desires, see them in their true relations to each other, and come to a decision which will do complete justice to all. But the ideal may be approached.