Читать книгу A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution - Cora May Williams - Страница 27

The existence of morality presupposes the existence of commandments of duty, and of an authority. Among animals, as well as among human beings, we find recognized authority and can discern the principles of action which constitute the duty of any particular animal. Authority among the lower animals is based on might, which is, indeed, the universal source of authority, without which no authority can exist. Personal authority is but a particular form of the authority of circumstances; and to this authority every creature must be subject. It consists of two factors: the outer authority of the environment, and the inner authority of impulse. Duty is obedience to authority. The duty of the organism consists in action that corresponds to these two authorities, following the direction given as the resultant of the mixture of the two components. That is, that manner of life is right or moral which renders the life of the organism the fullest possible under the circumstances. The unreasoning organism is unconsciously drawn to seek this maximum, while the reasoning being seeks it through reflection. The impulse to happiness includes, therefore, for the reasoning being, the impulse to morality; or, ideally expressed, the relative morality equals the relative happiness; morality and happiness are the same thing.

An authority without the means of enforcing itself is a self-contradiction. The means by which nature makes its authority felt is organic excitation. In proportion to its strength, an excitation produces sensation, in case it is not too weak to make itself felt at all. Every excitation has a definite significance and may come from without or within. Pleasant excitations are always, primarily, the feeling of the stilling of pain, though there are pains, such as, for instance, that of a wound, the toothache, headache, an aching corn, which have no corresponding feeling of pleasure. Nor is pleasure the only offspring of pain, since pain may bring forth pain. Pleasure depends, in its character as pleasure as well as in its strength, on the feeling preceding it in the organism; that is, its quality is the result, not of the degree of organic excitation, but of the order of succession of the feelings. For this reason, the same feeling which brings pleasure to one individual may bring pain to another.

This whole deduction is at variance with Spencer's theory that pleasurable excitations are favorable to life, painful ones injurious. And since observation is in direct opposition to his assertion, his followers have been obliged to supplement it with the conception that pain is gradually weeded out by natural selection. On the contrary, we need pain at every instant, since it is the impulse to action; persistence in the same condition through lack of excitation, must result in death; pleasure can never originate action, it can only cause persistence in action already begun. The fact has been too often overlooked, that the motive and the "end" of an action are by no means the same. The motive is pain, and the end is either simply the stilling of pain or an additional positive pleasure. There are, therefore, many actions which are directed to no concrete positive end, but only to the purely negative end of escape from pain without consideration of the further results; a striking example of such action is suicide. Even where positive pleasure appears as an end, it is never in itself the motive to action. In order to become a motive, it must first be transformed into an excitation, into desire for pleasure; and this desire for a definite or an indefinite pleasure is, in its essence, pain—the pain of the absence of pleasure.[60]

The pleasure sought may be one already known through experience, or it may be one not yet experienced. In the latter case, the desire is awakened by instruction or reflection, or else induced by instinct. But the motive is always the same, namely, a seeking after pleasure, hence a feeling of pain.

This view furnishes us with a psychical explanation of the association of ideas, the mysterious so-called transferrence of the feeling of pleasure from the end to the means. Pleasure begins as soon as we have begun the action which will bring us with certainty to the end desired, and this pleasure may reach such a degree of strength at some point of the process as to conquer the desire for the real end, hem further action, and dispose to continuance at the point reached. The action of the miser may be thus explained.

The objection that, if pain is the motive, the organism is nothing but a bundle of pains, is by no means valid, for it overlooks the fact that pain remains, in an immense number of cases, below the threshold of consciousness; as in the case of organic action, where it is rhythmic. The same is true of reflex action. To any close observer of the lower organisms, it seems most probable that these possess consciousness (see Wundt, "Physiologische Psychologie"), nor is it by any means proved that the plants do not possess it likewise. It is certainly remarkable that exactly the lowest plants, which stand so near the animals in the phenomena of their life, exhibit movements closely resembling those of animals. And it is, moreover, a fact that automatic and reflex actions increase with the degree of organization, and are most numerous in human beings. With increased exercise, one chain of movements after the other is withdrawn from consciousness; and through this removal from consciousness action gains in certainty and rapidity, and in energy also, since the part of the force which was before lost in inducing consciousness is now released. Such removal from consciousness is, therefore, a benefit to the organism, as an adaptation to the increased demands of circumstances. Movements which thus become unconscious are each and every one of them movements which have but one definite end and an interruption of which either kills or seriously injures the organism, or at least brings disorder into its life for the time being. An easily excited consciousness would be an exceeding danger to the animal. Conscious action is directed to the attainment of variable ends by means which are also variable. It cannot, therefore, astonish us that consciousness disappeared in plants after the loss of free motion.

By the regular exercise of certain actions or of trains of thought, either through necessity or by habit certain tracks are worn or taken possession of, so that the whole process, from the excitation to the action resulting upon it, takes place with such rapidity that we are no longer conscious of its separate phases and so of the growth of the result.

The first commandment of animal ethics is, therefore: "Flee pain"; and closely associated with it is a second commandment furnished by the insatiability of the organism, the impulse to happiness, to increase of life. The principle of Spencer's ethics, according to which normal living is right living, would result in stagnation. Right living consists, on the contrary, in progress, in passing beyond the normal. No educator would hesitate for an instant to pronounce the continuance of a pupil upon a present normal immoral, and to oppose it with all his powers. From day to day the developing organism advances the line of its normal activity. And as in the individual, so in the species: every new generation exceeds in a certain measure the activity of the last. Not rest, but motion, constitutes the normal; not rest, but motion, is happiness, and the spring of happiness. Not that being which has no wants, but that which develops and satisfies the greatest possible number of wants, is the happiest, leads the most pleasurable life. When we apply these principles to the animals, we reach the conception that all such as lead a solitary life live morally when they endeavor, with all their powers, to better their own condition. That they injure plants and other animals in so doing need not trouble us, since they are forced to do so in order to maintain life. The principle on which animal life is based is hence preëminently egoistic and acknowledges no other right than that of might. Spencer, in speaking of altruism on the lowest plane of animal life, makes the fundamental and quite fatal mistake that he does not first sharply and distinctly define egoism. Had he done this, he would certainly have found that, for egoism, as for altruism, the criterion of consciousness, of will, is indispensable. In his definition of altruism as consisting in those acts which in any way benefit others, he does nothing less than get rid of egoism altogether, since there are no acts which do not, in the end, benefit others than the performer. The greater number of the young brought forth by lowest organisms serve as food for other species, and hence the parent animal, in bringing forth such numbers, favors these species rather than her own flesh and blood. The fly would act altruistically, according to Spencer's definition, in being caught in the net of the spider.

A creature which gets its food, as do many of the lower species, without exertion of its own, does not act egoistically, nor does the animal which, in the natural course of its growth, brings forth young by spontaneous division; but that animal may do so which acquires its food by means of any voluntary actions, however insignificant, or which voluntarily protects and cares for its young; and such voluntary action increases rather than decreases with greater organization. Real egoism begins with the voluntary acquisition of food, a process continued in the forced excretion of the young. But since this action benefits the second generation, we may regard it as the connecting link between egoism and altruism. It is not purely altruistic; altruism proper begins with the nourishment and care of the young. And to what degree we have a right to consider even this as really altruistic can be determined only by further investigation. The emptying of the milk-glands is combined with pleasure; it may therefore be regarded as primarily egoistic, and furnishes us with a further example of the development of altruism from egoism. Altruism increases, not only with higher organization, but also with a higher development of social life.

The beginnings of society are to be found in the family life of animals; the most primitive form of this is the temporary, voluntary association of male and female among the higher species; that is, the anthropoids and vertebrates. On this merely temporary association follows, as a higher stage, the lasting family union, which exists among comparatively few animals. The so-called "states" of the animals are, in their most typical instances, nothing but families living in a condition of polyandry.

Closer association gives opportunity for a misuse of the powers and aims of the individual, before impossible. Examples of this are the theft of honey from one hive of bees by the workers of another, and the carrying off of the young by wasps and ants, as also the slaughter of the drones. Since the robber of yesterday may be the robbed of to-day, such acts are harmful to individuals, to the family, and to the species. They diminish the degree of life, and are opposed to animal ethics. The association of male and female, since only temporary, affords little opportunity for immorality, and the duties of parents to their young are, for the most part, faithfully performed. In striking contrast to the natural morality of wild animals is the immorality of domestic animals, which give themselves up to every sort of vice when not restrained. The moral conditions of any associated animals not under control, whether in zoölogical gardens, in the town, or in the country, is, in fact, monstrous. Immorality increases with the closer association of animals. The closer the contact and the looser the bond between the individuals of a species, the greater the opportunity for immorality, and the worse the resulting habits. The careless life of pleasure led by animals that live in solitude, is interfered with, in a state of association, by certain duties. How far the performance of such duties springs from a concealed pleasure, or from instinct, or follows upon the command of authority, we, unfortunately, cannot say. The limitation of gratification signifies, however, decrease of pleasure. The needs of different animals differ according to differing organization; higher organization means greater and more complicated desire, the satisfaction of which is often impossible, but it means also the attainment of capacity for greater pleasure in form and intensity. Hence even the partly attained pleasure of the higher animals is, in intensity as well as in fulness, much greater than the completely attained pleasure of the lower animals.