Ethics

Ethics may be defined as the science of moral conduct, or the doctrine of human character. It is a philosophical inquiry into the facts and laws of the moral sense, the principles and the end of human obligation, thegroundsfor thedistinction which enjoins certain kinds of action and forbids others, the ultimate authority which makes it incumbent upon man to obey a certain law 01 follow a certain end. It differs from the theoretical sciences in discussing not merely what is, but what ought to be, and discriminating the right from the wrong in thh actual facts of conduct. It is, at the same time, interconnected (1) with psychology, which treats of mental processes, often with reference to their ethical bearing. Ethical systems are wont to be grounded in a certain philosophy of the mind, and some have even defined Ethics as “a branch of the wider science that deals with the spiritual constitution of man.” (2) With sociology, the development of customs and institutions. Science must trace the historic relation of moral ideas and practices to social customs and political and religious institutions. (3) Other cognate subjects are free-will, fate, materialism, theology. Theories of morals are largely determined by these. Man acts in pursuance of his beliefs. Character is the outcome of thought.

The results of investigation are classified into three schools: the Intuitional, the Utilitarian, and the Historical. Antagonistic as are these different general theories, the first two sometimes approach each other and flow into each other, and the same may be said of the last two.

According to the Intuitional school the apprehension of the moral good or evil, the conception which recognizes certain types of character or conduct as better than others, lies immediately within the soul. Moral discriminations, like the reasoning power, are native in the mind, whose action in this sphere is unique, in that it discovers a distinct element not furnished by the mere exercise of reasoning. A natural moral faculty apprehends intuitively the absolute distinction between right and wrong. Independent of experience, irrespective of any observed tendency to produce certain consequences, it spontaneously discriminates in actions a quality called moral, just as by taste we detect the quality of beauty in objects, and this discrimination is accompanied by a feeling of obligation, and in the case of personal or voluntary actions, by a sense of approval or condemnation. The existence and the authority of the moral law have their seat and spring in the soul. Primal and immutable principles of conduct are stamped upon the human constitution.

While the Intuitionalists agree on this general theory, they differ in various particulars, especially in relation to the final ground of the authority of moral ideas. Having these ideas, whence comes the sense of obligation underlying them, the concept of oughtness? Wherefore these authoritative averments of conscience? One view finds the final ground in God’s appointment. By the sovereign exercise of his will God decrees right as right and wrong as wrong, and he has made conscience the reflex of his authority. Another finds it in the nature of things, and therefore in the very being of God as the executive of the moral universe. Some speak of “the eternal fitness” of things, and hold virtue to consist in conformity with this fitness; and some identify virtue with benevolence. Among the representatives of Intuitionalism are Clarke, Cudworth, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Reid, Stuart, McCosh, Whewell. Its greatest expositor was, doubtless, Bishop Butler, who asserted: “Had conscience power, as it has manifest authority, it would absolutely rule the world.” Kant spoke of “the starry heaven above and the moral law within” as the two things that “fill the mind with an ever new, an ever rising admiration and reverence.” This great metaphysician makes conscience the practical reason which lays down absolute or unconditional laws. Its categorical imperative prescribes a principle of conduct irrespective of desire or an ulterior end.

In the Utilitarian scheme utility is made the criterion or standard of duty. Instead of native impulses pointing out moral distinctions, and an immediate spontaneous judgment in man enforcing their observance, these distinctions are the result of observation and experience. Virtue and vice are differentiated by calculation, not by intuition. Moral ideas are derived or developed from a series of rational processes. They are grounded in the desire for the chief good. The proper test of virtue is the happiness, pleasure, profit, well-being, to which it leads. It is a means to an end. Instead of ultimate it is mediate, and its adaptedness to secure the highest good gives to it its value, its moral quality.

Various subdivisions are comprehended under this scheme. With some the quality of good or evil in things is determined wholly by the agreeable or disagreeable results. The sovereign motives of conduct are pain and pleasure. It is for these alone to determine conduct. “Ought” and “duty” are pestilent intruders into human speech. Others hold that the supreme good is moral perfection as well as happiness, that the highest end to which all the laws of conduct are subordinate is ethical. Thus Utilitarianism allows also a place to religious sanctions.

One class of Utilitarians are called Egoistic Hedonists, or Eudaemonists, because they hold the supreme end to be individual happiness. With some this is the synonym of sensual enjoyment—with all it is extreme selfishness. The maximum of individual pleasure is the end of personal existence. Others are called Universalist-ic Hedonists, or Altruists. Their creed is the common good—the greatest good of the greatest number—the happiness of mankind. Not each for himself, but each for all, is the cardinal principle of morality. And an altruism which makes the interest of humanity the chief concern, it is claimed, is superior to the disinterested benevolence of the Intuitional school. The most famous Utilitarians are Locke, Hume, Paley, Bentham, Mill, and Bain.

A theory radically distinct from all those grouped under the two general systems is the application of the evolutionary hypothesis to moral conduct. It is styled by its friends the Historical or Scientific theory. “The intuitions of a moral faculty,” says Herbert Spencer, “are the slowly organized results of experience received by the race.” Conscience is the product of material combinations, nerve forces and nerve shocks, accumulated and transmitted through past generations. What is called morality is, accordingly, “simply the mechanical result of a process material in its origin, utilitarian in its blind aims, necessary in its unfolding stages, and involuntary in the sentiments and judgments which it finally reaches.”

Ancient ethical speculations . bore undoubtedly the Utilitarian stamp, but they were again differentiated by the question of the highest good; Plato and Aristotle holding it to be “the perfect development of a man’s self in moral and intellectual excellence,” while Epicurus formulated a system which makes his own pleasure the moral end of each individual.

The ethical instructions of Christ are incomparable, and rest upon his immediate authority. The primitive Church was distinguished by its high moral ideas and practice. The asceticism which arose with Monasticism prevented a normal development of ethical principles. Scholasticism reared a sytem based on the seven cardinal virtues in contrast wkh the seven cardinal sins. The Reformers ascribed ethical as well as doctrinal authority to the Scriptures alone, and comprehended in the several commandments of the decalogue the whole compass of human duty. The pioneers in the scientific treatment of the subject are Grotius, Mosheim, Buddeus, and Crusius.

Among the more important ethical writings are Sedgwick: Methods of .Ethics; Outlines of the History of Ethics; Kant: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals; Critique of Practical Reason; Spencer: Data of Ethics; Martineau: Types of Ethical Theory; Martensen: Christian Ethics; Dorner: System of Christian Ethics; Lut-hardt: History of Christian Ethics before the Reformation. E. J. Wolf.