A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution Part 2

The laws of progressive heredity he gives as four: (1) the law of the inheritance of adaptation; (2) the law of the surer inheritance of qualities fixed by continual operation of its causes on individual generations; (3) the law of h.o.m.ochronous inheritance or inheritance at a corresponding age; (4) the law of h.o.m.otypous inheritance, which may be otherwise called the law of inheritance in corresponding parts of the body.[37]

Having thus glanced at the special theories by which the great original authorities paved the way for a system of Evolutional Ethics, we may direct our attention to the more purely philosophical writers who have turned these theories to advantage and elaborated them. The first on the list is

FOOTNOTES:

[34] P. 703 _et seq._

[35] Erster Vortrag.

[36] P. 194 _et seq._

[37] For ill.u.s.trations and proofs of these laws, see the "Naturliche Schopfungsgeschichte," pp. 193-197.

HERBERT SPENCER

In treating of Mr. Spencer's work, it is necessary to begin with a book which made its appearance before the publication of "The Origin of Species," namely, "Social Statics" (1851), Mr. Spencer's first noteworthy publication. In this are contained some remarkable statements, which are of especial worth as showing in what measure the thought of the time was already tending in the direction of the revelations of its greatest prophet, and science, in England as in Germany, was slowly coming to recognize the unity of nature in life and human progress. An a.n.a.lysis of the first and theoretical part of this work will be, therefore, of use, and with this we will begin.

Mr. Spencer opens his book with some criticisms of Utilitarianism or the "Expediency Philosophy." Every rule, in order to be of value, must have a definite meaning. The rule of "the greatest happiness to the greatest number" supposes mankind to be unanimous in the definition of the greatest happiness; the standard of happiness is, however, infinitely variable, in nations and in individuals. For happiness signifies a gratified state of all the faculties; and no two individuals are alike in faculties. In endeavoring to fix a standard, we are met by such insolvable problems as: What is the ratio between mental and bodily enjoyments const.i.tuting the greatest happiness? Which is most truly an element in the desired felicity, content or aspiration? The conclusion we inevitably reach is that a true conception of what human life should be is possible only to the ideal man,--in whom the component feelings exist in their normal proportions. The world as yet contains no such men, and we are left with an insolvable riddle on our hands.

There is the same uncertainty as to the mode of obtaining the greatest happiness.

The Expediency Philosophy believes that man's intellect is competent to observe accurately and to grasp at once the multiplied phenomena of life and derive therefrom the knowledge which shall enable him to say whether such or such measures will conduce to the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

If without knowledge of terrestrial phenomena and their laws, Newton had attempted a theory of planetary and stellar equilibrium, he might have cogitated to all eternity without result. Such an attempt, however, would have been far less absurd than the attempt to find out the principles of public polity by a direct examination of that wonderfully intricate combination, Society. In order to understand Society it is necessary to comprehend Man.

Another mistake of the Expediency Philosophy is that it a.s.sumes the eternity of government, which marks a certain stage of civilization, but which will by no means necessarily last forever. Time was when the history of a people was the history of its government. Feudalism, serfdom, slavery,--all were forms of government. Progress means less government; const.i.tutional forms, political freedom, democracy, all mean this. Government is a sign of imperfection, an evil necessary against knavery; it must exist only so long as this exists. The Expediency Philosophy is, however, founded on government; takes it into partners.h.i.+p: but a system of moral philosophy professes to be a code of correct rules for the best, as well as the worst, members of society, and applicable to humanity in its highest conceivable perfection. Of the Expediency Philosophy it must, therefore, be said that it can claim no scientific character, since:

Its fundamental proposition is not an axiom but a problem to be solved;

It is expressed in terms possessing no fixed acceptation;

It would require omniscience to carry it into practice;

And, moreover, it takes imperfection for its basis.

The existence of society argues a certain fitness and desire of mankind for it; without this, it would not exist, as eating and drinking, and the nourishment and protection of offspring would not take place if there were no corresponding desires, but merely an abstract opinion in favor of the worth of the two. In the method of nature, there is always some prompter, called a desire, answering to each of the actions which it is requisite for us to perform. It is probable, therefore, that we shall find an instrumentality of this sort prompting us to morality. In objection to the theory of a moral sense, the want of uniformity in judgment as to what is right is often advanced. But none deny the importance of appet.i.te, though all know that it is by no means an infallible guide in the choice of kind or quant.i.ty of food. The same may be said of parental affection. The foundation of the claim of any man that he has as great a right to happiness as any other can be found in the last a.n.a.lysis in feeling only; he feels that it is so.

None but those committed to a preconceived theory can fail to recognize the workings of such a faculty as the moral sense. It is clear that the perceptions of propriety or impropriety of conduct do not originate with the intellect but with the emotional faculties. The intellect, uninfluenced by desire, would show both miser and spendthrift that their habits were unwise; whereas the intellect, influenced by desire, makes each think the other a fool, but does not enable him to see his own foolishness.

This is a universal law: Every feeling is accompanied by a sense of the rightness of those actions which give it gratification. From an impulse to behave in a way we call equitable arises a perception that it is proper, and a conviction that it is good. There is, however, a perpetual conflict amongst feelings, from which results an incongruity of beliefs.

It has been said that codes derived from the moral sense have no stability since this sense ratifies one principle at one time and place, another at another. The same objection applies, however, to every other system of morals, and happily there is an answer to the objection. The error criticised is one of application, not of doctrine. The decisions of the Geometric Sense are conflicting; yet there are certain axioms upon which all agree; and in the same manner there are moral axioms to be found, upon which all must agree. Disagreement is to be looked for among imperfect characters. But nature's laws know no exception: Obey or suffer are the alternatives. A progress from entire unconsciousness of these laws to the conviction that law is universal and inevitable, constancy an essential attribute of divine rule, is the substance of the progress of man. The end of these unbending utterances is universal good; we have no alternative but to a.s.sume the law of constancy to be the best possible one. As with the physical, so with the ethical; all religions teach the inevitableness of punishment and reward, with which deeds are _necessarily_ and _indissolubly_ connected. It is of infinite importance to recognize and follow the laws of society. To the objection that one cannot always be guided by abstract principles, that there are exceptions where prudence must act, it may be replied that there are no exceptions to the laws of nature; that even if, in a particular instance, partial good may result, a far greater general evil is entailed by the opening of the way to future disobediences, and that we cannot, moreover, be sure that an exceptional disobedience will bring the antic.i.p.ated benefits. Moral as well as physical evil is the result of a want of congruity between the faculties and their sphere of action.

With regard to the results of varying conditions upon man, we have three alternative theories from which to choose: either man remains entirely unaltered by his surroundings, or he grows more unfitted for them, or else he grows more fitted for them. The first two suppositions being absurd, we are obliged to admit the remaining one. And since all evil results from non-adaptation, and non-adaptation is being continually diminished, it follows that evil must be continually diminis.h.i.+ng. The evil in society shows that man is not yet completely adapted to a state which requires that each individual shall have such desires only as may be fully satisfied without trenching upon the ability of other individuals to obtain a like satisfaction. The primitive condition of man required that he should sacrifice the welfare of other beings to his own; the old attribute still clings to him in some measure; the belief in human perfectibility amounts to the belief that man will eventually become completely suited to his mode of life. Progress is not an accident but a necessity; and if, instead of proposing it as a rule of human conduct, Bentham had simply a.s.sumed the "greatest happiness" to be the creative purpose, his position would have been tenable enough. It is one thing, however, to hold that greatest happiness is the creative purpose, and quite a different thing to hold that greatest happiness should be the immediate aim of mankind. Truth has two sides, a divine and a human; or, it is for man to ascertain the conditions which lead to the greatest happiness, and to live in conformity with these.

The men who are to realize this greatest sum of happiness must be such as can obtain complete happiness without diminis.h.i.+ng the activity and happiness of others. The first great condition of the attainment of the end is, therefore, justice, and, as a supplement to this, negative and positive beneficence,--abstinence from diminis.h.i.+ng the spheres of activity of others, and further, a positive increase of their pleasure.

For man is sympathetic, and the sympathetic pleasures increase the sum total of happiness.

The exercise[38] of all the faculties in which happiness consists is not only man's right but also his duty. For the fact of pain, of punishment, proves that G.o.d intends and wills such exercise. But the exercise of all the faculties is freedom; all men have, therefore, a right to freedom of action. This principle, however, implies a limitation of man by men, whereby we arrive at the general proposition that every man may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his feelings _compatible with the possession of a like liberty in every other man_. In the progress of mankind, or adaptation, the conduct which hurts necessary feelings in others must inevitably undergo restraint and consequent limitation; conduct which hurts only their incidental feelings, as those of caste or prejudice, will not inevitably be restrained, but if it springs from necessary feelings, will, on the contrary, be continued at the expense of these incidental feelings and to their final suppression. Morality is _not_, therefore, to be interpreted as a refraining from the infliction of any pain whatever, for some sentiment must be wounded; and by much wounding it is gradually weakened. When men mutually behave in a way that offends some essential element in the nature of each, and all in turn have to bear the consequent suffering, there will arise a tendency to curb the desire that makes them so behave.

Questions of individual morality seem to present a difficulty to this theory of freedom. Thus, for instance, on the principle above adopted, the liberty of drunkenness cannot be condemned as long as the drunkard respects a like liberty in others; and here we fall into the inconsistency of affirming that a man is at liberty to do something essentially destructive of happiness. However, if we admit, as we must, that liberty is the _primary_ law, no desire to get a secondary law fulfilled can warrant us in breaking this primary one; we must deal with secondary laws as best we can.

The first principle above stated may also be secondarily derived. The regulation of conduct is not left to the accident of a philosophical inquiry; the agent of morality is the Moral Sense.

In all ages, but more especially in recent ones, have there been affirmations of the equality of all men and their equal right to happiness. When we find that a belief like this is not only permanent but daily gaining ground, we have good reason to conclude that it corresponds to some essential element of our moral const.i.tution; more especially since we find that its existence is in harmony with that chief prerequisite to greatest happiness lately dwelt upon; and that its growth is in harmony with the law of adaptation, by which the greatest happiness is being wrought out.

To a.s.sert, however, that the sense of justice is but the gradually acquired conviction that benefits spring from some kinds of action, and evils from other kinds, the sympathies and antipathies contracted manifesting themselves as a love of justice and a hatred of injustice, is as absurd as to conclude that hunger springs from a conviction of the benefit of eating.

The Moral Sense must be regarded as a special faculty, since, otherwise, there would be nothing during the dormancy of the other faculties, which must sometimes occur, to prevent an infringement on the freedom requisite for their future action.

As Adam Smith has shown in his "Theory of Moral Sentiments," the proper regulation of our conduct to others is secured by means of a faculty whose function it is to excite in each being the emotions displayed by the beings about him. The sentiment of justice is nothing but a sympathetic affection of the instinct of personal rights, a sort of reflex function of it. Other things being equal, those persons possessing the strongest sense of personal rights have, also, the strongest sense of the rights of others. There is no _necessary_ connection between the two; but in the average of cases they bear a constant ratio.

It may be objected that if the truth that every man has a freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringe not upon the equal freedom of others, be an axiom, it should be recognized by all, as is not the case.

This difficulty seems in part due to the impossibility of making the perfect law recognize an imperfect state. It may further be answered that the Bushman knows nothing of the science of mathematics, yet that arithmetic is a fact; the difference in men's moral perceptions is no difficulty in our way, but rather ill.u.s.trates the truth of our theory, since man is not yet adapted to the social state.

In further confirmation of the doctrine of the free exercise of function, it may be added that, since non-fulfilment of desire produces misery, if G.o.d is to be regarded as willing such non-fulfilment, he must be regarded as willing men's misery; which is absurd. If men are not naturally free, then a doctrine of the divine right of kings is easily reached, and whoever is king must be regarded as such by divine right, no matter how he reached the throne.

Spencer then proceeds to apply his first principle or axiom of freedom to prove the right to life and liberty, to the use of the earth, to property and free speech; and considers further the rights of women and of children, and the political rights of individuals; the const.i.tution and duty of the state; commerce, education, and the poor-laws; government colonization, sanitary supervision, postal arrangements, etc.

A remarkable feature of this part of "Social Statics" is that Spencer, while applying his principle with quite an opposite result to all other property, advocates the nationalization of the land, on the ground that the freedom of the individual is right only in so far as it does not hinder a like freedom in others; and that the monopolization of the privileges of land-owners.h.i.+p by individuals does prevent the enjoyment of the same privilege by others.

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

The course of civilization could not possibly have been other than it has been.

Progress shows us that perfect individuation joined to the greatest mutual dependence will be reached in the future of the race. There will be an ultimate ident.i.ty of personal and social interests, and a disappearance of evil. Spencer gives, however, a number of arguments to prove that the interest of society is, at present also, the interest of the individual.

The "Theory of Population" (published in 1852), which is founded on the theory of an antagonism between the intellectual and the reproductive powers, and on the ancient theory of a direct relation between skull-capacity or brain-size and intellectual power, contains this pa.s.sage: "From the beginning, pressure of population has been the proximate cause of progress. It produced the original diffusion of the race. It compelled men to abandon predatory habits and take to agriculture. It led to the clearing of the earth's surface. It forced men into the social state; made social organization inevitable; and has developed the social sentiments. It has stimulated to progressive improvements in production, and to increased skill and intelligence. It is daily pressing us into closer contact and more mutually dependent relations.h.i.+ps. And after having caused, as it ultimately must, the due peopling of the globe, and the bringing of all its habitable parts into the highest state of culture,--after having brought all processes for the satisfaction of human wants to the greatest perfection,--after having, at the same time, developed the intellect into complete competency for its work, and the feelings into complete fitness for social life,--after having done all this, we see the pressure of population, as it gradually finishes its work, must gradually bring itself to an end."

In a letter to Mr. Mill, published in Bain's "Mental and Moral Science"

(p. 721, 3d edition), Spencer repudiates the t.i.tle of Anti-Utilitarian, which Mr. Mill, in view of the criticisms of Utilitarianism contained in "Social Statics," had applied to him. He defines his position in respect to Utilitarianism as follows: "I have never regarded myself as an Anti-Utilitarian. My dissent from the doctrine of Utility as commonly understood, concerns, not the object to be reached by men, but the method of reaching it. While I admit that happiness is the ultimate end to be contemplated, I do not admit that it should be the proximate end.

The Expediency Philosophy, having concluded that happiness is a thing to be achieved, a.s.sumes that Morality has no other business than empirically to generalize the results of conduct, and to supply for the guidance of conduct nothing more than its empirical generalizations.

"But the view for which I contend is, that Morality properly so-called--the science of right conduct--has for its object to determine how and why certain modes of conduct are detrimental, and certain other modes beneficial. These good and bad results cannot be accidental, but must be necessary consequences of the const.i.tution of things, and I conceive it to be the business of Moral Science to deduce from the laws of life and the conditions of existence what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce happiness and what kinds to produce unhappiness. Having done this, its deductions are to be recognized as laws of conduct; and are to be conformed to irrespective of a direct estimation of happiness or misery.

"Perhaps an a.n.a.logy will most clearly show my meaning. During its early stages, planetary astronomy consisted of nothing more than acc.u.mulated observations respecting the positions and motions of the sun and planets; from which acc.u.mulated observations it came by and by to be empirically predicted, with an approach to truth, that certain of the heavenly bodies would have certain positions at certain times. But the modern science of planetary astronomy consists of deductions from the law of gravitation--deductions showing why the celestial bodies necessarily occupy certain places at certain times. Now the kind of relation which thus exists between ancient and modern astronomy is a.n.a.logous to the kind of relation which, I conceive, exists between the Expediency Morality and Moral Science properly so-called. And the objection which I have to the current Utilitarianism is, that it recognizes no more developed form of morality--does not see that it has reached but the initial stage of Moral Science.

"To make my position fully understood, it seems needful to add that, corresponding to the fundamental propositions of a developed Moral Science, there have been, and still are, developing in the race, certain fundamental moral intuitions; and that, though these moral intuitions are the results of acc.u.mulated experiences of Utility, gradually organized and inherited, they have come to be quite independent of conscious experience. Just in the same way that I believe the intuition of s.p.a.ce possessed by any living individual, to have arisen from the organized and consolidated experiences of all antecedent individuals, who bequeathed to him their slowly developed nervous organizations--just as I believe that this intuition, requiring only to be made definite and complete by personal experiences, has practically become a form of thought, apparently quite independent of experience; so do I believe that the experiences of utility organized and consolidated through all past generations of the human race, have been producing nervous modifications, which, by continued transmission and acc.u.mulation, have become in us certain faculties of moral intuition, certain emotions responding to right and wrong conduct, which have no apparent basis in the individual experiences of utility. I also hold that, just as the s.p.a.ce-intuition responds to the exact demonstrations of geometry, and has its rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them, so will moral intuitions respond to the demonstrations of Moral Science; and will have their rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them."

In "Recent Discussions in Science, Philosophy, and Morals"[39] (1871), Spencer, after quoting portions of the above letter as defining his position, continues with a consideration of the continual readjustment of the compromise between the ideal and the practicable, the former of which prescribes a system far too good for men as they are, the latter of which does not of itself tend to establish a system better than the existing one; and he reiterates his law of the perfect man as follows:--

"Granted that we are chiefly interested in ascertaining what is _relatively_ right, it still follows that we must first consider what is absolutely right; since the one conception presupposes the other."

Spencer further expressly repudiates empirical Utilitarianism, and denies the a.s.sertion of Mr. Hutton that he by implication recognizes no parentage for morals beyond that of the acc.u.mulation and organization of the facts of experience. On this head he says:--