Читать книгу A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution - Cora May Williams - Страница 24

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For what purpose are we in the world? asks the philosopher, and lays, with this question, the foundation for later errors. In the effort to rescue from destruction the theory of a creative intelligence, teleology has adapted itself to many forms of scientific theory, not excepting that of evolution. It reads into evolution progress towards what is, in one way or another, assumed to be an end. But we really know, in the universe, nothing but continuity, eternal change according to natural law, and so only causæ efficientes, never causæ finales; and organic development as well as processes in inorganic nature are to be explained in this manner. The assumption that the result of a process is an end towards which the process was directed is unwarranted. The question of science is not: Wherefore is any creature in the world? but: What is he? What is his actual aim, that is, his endeavor?

In the answer to this question, all philosophical schools have something in common. Happiness, in one form or another, is acknowledged to be the "end" of life in this sense. A follower of the utilitarian school may define happiness as the "sublime feeling that one has taken part in the continuous improvement of humanity, and the increase of human happiness," but his words are less a definition of the concept than a designation of the way in which happiness is to be arrived at. The "sublime feeling" can be represented only as a feeling of happiness, of joy. The religious theory, too, which represents the joys of religion on earth and in heaven, as compensating for the evils of this life, makes happiness the end of life, though in a different manner. Spencer is right in declaring that happiness, however it may be defined, always means, in the end, a greater amount of pleasure than of pain. At this point, however, the harmony of the schools ceases. The question as to the method by which this surplus of pleasure is to be obtained is answered in different ways. All say, indeed, by seeking good and avoiding evil. But opinion is divided as to what is good and what is evil.

Rolph here introduces a long criticism of the different schools. Against utilitarianism he urges that, in so far as it makes the happiness of the greatest number its principle, it asserts the right of the majority over a minority, and so advocates, by implication, an absolute subjection to authority.

Our whole moral education has for its aim to give the young as high a conception as possible of the happiness which springs from virtue and, on the other hand, to decry the pleasure which may result from forbidden acts. We seek, in this manner, to diminish the inward struggle and bring about the right result. He who has grown up under good influences escapes many temptations to which a man of less moral education falls a prey. According to Wallock, who makes the degree of inner struggle the measure of virtue, the man of better education in this case, the more moral man, must have less merit than the less moral man. Wallock thus founders on the rock which Kant so skilfully avoids; according to the former, the man whose lusts have been mastered by education could never equal the man of evil instincts, and the chastity of a Magdalen must be regarded as more moral than that of a pure woman.

Spencer's theory, that the conduct of the higher animals is better adjusted to ends than that of lower species, is erroneous; the lower animals are exactly as well organized for the ends of their existence as are the higher animals for theirs; the tapeworm is relatively just as perfect as the human being, in comparison with whom he possesses many superior qualities. The common judgment that the human being is superior does not accord with the real adjustment of things, but with our human conception of the ideal end of organization, our anthropocentric idea of the aim of life. We foolishly believe that the tapeworm and every other animal has the same end as the human being, and rank the animals according to this principle, instead of tracing the different genealogical branches to a like height and then comparing them. Not the fitness for ends, but the kind and multiplicity of the ends for which there is fitness, determine our judgment; and the ends by which we judge are those of our own life. We judge subjectively and absolutely instead of objectively and relatively. We are ever unconsciously influenced by the conception that nature, in creating the tapeworm, merely made a false step and a step backwards in her way towards the creation of man. That all animals are adapted, some in a greater, some in a less degree, to the ends of their existence, is proved by the simple fact of their existence, that is, of their survival in the struggle for existence; but which are in a higher, and which are in a less degree so adapted, is, in the individual instance, extremely difficult to determine. In any attempt at such an estimate, we must meet with peculiar difficulties, resulting from the fact that we judge of the adaptation to ends with less certainty the further from us any animal is in its organization. A comparison such as Spencer institutes is possible only with respect to like functions of similar organs in closely related forms.

The assertion that increase of ability for self-preservation leads to better care for the young, and makes of such care a duty, is likewise erroneous. For, up to the highly organized class of the crustacea, we have no example of care for the young. In the struggle for existence, the species which survive must be such as not only are in themselves best fitted for survival, but as also bring forth best fitted progeny. Nor has Spencer made clear on what ground natural process is to be regarded as identical with duty. In truth he has succeeded in showing only that care for the young is wide-spread in the animal kingdom, from which fact naturally follows that it is a quality which tends to the preservation of species.

It cannot be conceded that such a perfection as Spencer pictures, where each shall fulfil all the functions of his own life in the most perfect and complete manner without interfering with a like freedom in others, is possible. The assertion involves the extension to all living beings of that ideal principle of equal claims which Spencer repudiates with regard to man—showing that not all men are capable of a like degree of happiness and that individuals desire, moreover, pleasure differing in quality. Furthermore, a world of beings which, like the animals and many plants, can support life only by means of organic material, must, in order to exist, destroy organic life, either animal or vegetable. The theory does not even hold with regard to individuals of the same species; Spencer himself acknowledges the truth of the principles of Malthus and of Darwin, according to which, even with the lowest rate of increase, a struggle of competition must soon arise between individuals of the same species.

Nor does Spencer's proof of the fundamental character of altruism hold, on investigation. He demonstrates that through the animal species up to man, there is less and less self-sacrifice of the mother animal in giving birth to offspring. But this physical sacrifice is not altruism; altruism lies in conscious care for the young after birth, and this is not lessened, but increased, the higher we ascend.

That morality is but greater adjustment of acts to ends cannot be admitted. If, in ordinary speech, the word good refers to greatest adjustment to ends, whatever the ends may be, that is no proof that it must have the same significance in Ethics. A good shot may be a good one in that it hits the mark; but what if it kill a man? The acts of criminals may be as well adjusted to their ends and as easy to predict as those of a good man. Spencer's theory would lead, consistently carried out, to the principle that the means justify the end, an assertion that is even more dangerous than its opposite. The fact is, that in Ethics it is the nature of the end which is of importance.

Spencer endeavors to show that only normal exercise of function is favorable to life, and so moral;—that excess and deprivation are both injurious. It is not true, however, that excess is always injurious; within certain bounds it is made up for by reserves in the animal organism. Or, if Spencer should answer to this objection, that his "normal" is not to be represented by a sharp line, difficult to keep to, but by a broad road within which excess is safe, such a representation would both burden his theory with two dividing-lines, and moreover would not save it. For he has not deemed it necessary to treat the concept "normal" to an exact definition, and we find him using it in his later deductions in an entirely new sense—not as equilibrium between capacity of function and its exercise, but in the ideal significance of a harmony between the claims of the individual on the one side, and those of the environment on the other. This normal is nowhere actually to be found and cannot, from the nature of things, be arrived at. By addition of this significance, the word normal becomes indefinite in meaning, and is used, now in one sense, now in the other. Normal exercise of function has, however, nothing to do with the claims of the environment, which generally demands, indeed, a deviation from the normal.

Nor is Spencer's analysis of the beginning of the process of food-seizure, adduced in support of the theory that happiness and morality are commensurable, confirmed by facts. According to this theory, the process of food-taking begins with the contact of animal and food, in which act the commencement of diffusion of food in the body of the animal causes a pleasure which leads to the seizure of its prey and the further act of devouring it. The theory might hold of the lowest organisms, but could not be true of any animal furnished with an impenetrable shell or skin. Nor would the seizure follow with sufficient promptness if it were left to the action of the pleasure caused by diffusion. Moreover, we should expect to find, according to this theory, a much more general and finer development of the organ of taste among the animals—to find it as a special organ on the lowest planes of animal life; it is, on the contrary, the latest of the special senses to develop. It is the reaction on the sense of touch, the lowest and most general of the special senses, which causes the seizure of nourishment. We must, therefore, deny that pleasure is the motive to the seizure of food, and so, too, reject the conclusion that it is the motive to every other act.

Besides arguing that normal function brings pleasure, Spencer has attempted to prove that all pleasure has its spring in normal function, and is therefore moral. Could he succeed in so doing, hedonism would be proved. For since all schools agree in regarding happiness as the end of life, and since all these, in common, acknowledge happiness to be an excess of pleasure over pain, enjoyment might be regarded as the absolute guide. But if, as Spencer acknowledges, pleasure and morality are only in a perfectly adapted society commensurate, then in only such a society can pleasure be the criterion; and since we do not live in a perfectly adapted society, the theory is not applicable to us, and if practicably applied would be fatal to society.

Against Spencer's theory of the final spontaneity of morality, many objections may be urged, among others especially the one that such a morality ceases to be morality at all, virtue being possible, as Kant has demonstrated, only where a certain conquest of desire is achieved. Such a morality is, moreover, unattainable, an extravagant fancy.