THE NEW ETHICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20130, 15 December 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE NEW ETHICS.

PUTTING LIFE INTO MORALITY

BT VINCENT BAHBEXX.

The averago man, uninitiated into the strango mystery which is philosophy, has simple viows on the question of morality. If he has heard of Socrates, ho probably thinks of him as a man who had the misfortune to bo cursed with an unbearably shrewish wife. If ho hears the name of Kant, he probably thinks of a politician pleading from the public platform. Ho turns his back upon the abstractions of academic ethics. For Mr. Average Man has a simplo creed; ho believes in a modified version of the ten commandments, and lets it go. at that. Therein, did wo realise it (for each one of us is Mr. Average Man) \ve are wrong. For ethics, tho science of conduct, is uo longer an academic study, " in lone splendour hung aloft the night"; ethics today is of the earth, earthy. Its attitudo is that of every true science; there are problems awaiting solution, and it is tho duty of ethics to solve them. There is little inspiration to be derived from the writings of men like Kant and Ilegel, or from any of the pre-cvolu-tonary ethical treatises. It is truo that there is more to inspire in Socrates and in Aristotle than in Bacon and Hobbes; but there is more of good in such men as Green and Croce than in all the writers of the sterner schools. With tho realisation of tho fundamental truth of evolution, moral theory was cast down from its high scat. The pleasant myth of "Homo Sapiens " went by the board, and man was regarded not as a little lower than the angels, but as a little higher than the beasts. The gen etic point of view was applied to morals, with tho result that it began to to realised that morality, after all, was in great degree relative. Fixed and absolute standards, true for all time, were discarded as misleading, i Kant was one of the' first pre-cvolu-tionary moralists to be affected by the new view. It was he who held up a "Categorical imperative," which demanded an implicit obedience. But tho recognition that morals had to deal with reality, and that tho ultimate reality was life itself, showed this view to be more stern than practical. As one writer who commands respect has said, Kant's philosophy " was all a question of substituting an ostensibly non-theological for a discredited theological ethic; an 'Ought' for a ' Thus saitli tho Lord,' which had been delected as a priestly fiction." What is Conscience. One of tho main problems which has always faced the moral philosopher is that of the ultimate nature of conscience. " The still, small voice" of which we have heard so much used at one time to be regarded as a gift, as it were, frpm the skies. It was some ultra-mysterious faculty implanted in us by a benign but unknown agency. It was always infallible, and was a blessing vouchsafed to man alone. Now, however, this is a creed as outworn as it is unscientific. It is increasingly realised that conscience, primarily, is a social product, tho result of our common and daily intercourse with our fellows. Tho new-born child is as innocent of conscience as of clothes. It is not until he finds his will in conflict with others that such a faculty makes itself felt in tho workings of his mind. When he finds that certain courses of conduct bring down wrath upon his head, then it is that he begins to think of certain acts as wrongj and when praise is tho result of another lino of conduct, ho begins to realise that such-and-such is right. Thus conscience has its beginnings, and becomes more developed as tho child grows to maturity. It reaches its highest point when the mind is able to think out things for itself—when morality becomes reflective in the highest senso of tho word. If ono question has caused more controversy in ethical thought than another, it is that of tho nature of the " summum bonum." Philosophers have constantly been asking themselves " What is the highest good ? " Some have postulated pleasure or happiness; others, again, have championed the cause of knowledge, or of courage, or of truth. Not-One Supreme Good.

But tho " sutnnium bonum " is today relatively unimportant, for it is felt that smell arguments are abortive. Ethics must postulate, not one supreme good, but many goods; it must indicate a way of life which will make for the general betterment of mankind. Instead of indulging in heavy philosophical theorising, ethics must keep in touch with reality. To do this, wo must understand human nature. Psychology thus becomes tho foundation upon which moral codes must bo built. It is useless advocating absoluto asceticism, for example, if such is impossible for tho bulk of mankind. Morality must bo brought to tho touchstone of reality; ono cannot livo by courage alono.^ On the other hand, this process must not bo overdone. Wo must not out-Freud Freud. In other words, because man is by no means altogether rational, we must not deny him reason altogether. To do so would bo as" futile as to adopt Plato's analogy, and to comparo Reason to a charioteer controlling a team of unruly horses—the horses representing tho passions.

Modern ethics has done much to rocoucilo reason and emotion. Tho two aro complementary, not diametrically opposed. Reason, as L. T. Ifobhouso has it., is " the conception of a principle operative within experience, tho work of which is always partial and incomplete, always extending itself, while at tho same time priming and sharpening its own methods." In other words, it is " the progressive organisation of irrational impulses which makes up tho rational life." As the rational life is essentially the moral life, it is easy enough to see tho vast change of front which has taken place in contemporary ethical theory. Ethics as a Science. With the disenchantnynt and tho demand for the revision of old forms that followed the Great War, this humanising of moral philosophy was given a greater impetus. Then it liecamo increasingly recognised that morality had to bo brought into direct contact with its subject—which, after all. was nothing more than life itself. What was onco a philosophy has now become a science, based on tho hard facts of psychology, and endeavouring to solve tho practical problems which all of us meet every day. In this century men aro moro dependent on one another than ever bpforc; no man can now livo unto himself alone. Our duties aro world-wido in (hoir scope, and tho average man can no longer, with safety, turn an uninterested back' upon ♦ho science of ethics. If ho is to livo tho fullest possible life, he needs help in life's problems.

As Socrates said many centurios ago: " A life unexamined, uncriticised, is not worthy of a man." But both examination and criticism must be on a scientific basis. Here it is that ethics extends a friendly hand; let us not hesitate to grasp it. V