Читать книгу Ethics - Джон Дьюи - Страница 55

A further line of development joined forces with this growth of intelligence, to emphasize the problem of moral control, and to set the individual with his standards over against the objective standards of society. This was the rapidly growing consciousness of individual goods and interests. The commercial life, with its possibilities of individual property, the rapid changes of political life, with the rise of individuals to power and privilege, the increasing opportunities which a high civilization brought both men and women for personal enjoyment and gratification of rapidly increasing wants, all tended to make the individual seek his own good, and to shift the emphasis of life from the question, What is proper, or honorable? to the question, What is good—good for me?

Class Interests.—The conviction that the authority of government and law was largely dictated by the very considerations of private interests which they were supposed to overrule and eliminate, made the situation more acute. For the Greek States were no longer groups with common interests. The growth of capital, the corresponding eagerness for gain, the formation of distinct classes, each intent on its interests, supplanted the older, more homogeneous State. "The whole development of the political life of the Hellenic republics depended ultimately on the decision of the question, which of the different social classes—the capitalistic minority, the middle class, or the poor—should obtain the dominant place." Aristotle defines an oligarchy as a State governed in the interest of the rich; a democracy, as a State governed in the interest of the poor. Another contemporary writer explains a democracy as consulting the interests of the democrats, the "lower classes," and considers this a matter of course, "for if the rich had the say, they would do what was good for themselves but not for the multitude." Naturally such dominance by classes called out vigorous criticisms upon the laws and standards so established. The aristocratic minority inveighed against "custom" or conventions which would tame the strong to the level of the weak. Nature demands rather the "survival of the fittest," i.e., of the strong. The enlightened spectator of the game of government, on the other hand, declares that all laws are made in the interest of ruling classes. The reader of current criticisms on laws and courts will see how close is the parallel to present complaints. We have to-day the same two classes: One inveighs against governmental interference with the right to combine, to contract, and in general to get from the earth or from men, women, and children all that superior power and shrewdness can possibly extract. The other complains that legislatures are owned by wealth, that judges are appointed from corporation lawyers, that common law is a survival of ancient aristocratic status, and that for these reasons labor can get no justice.

Let us first hear the plea for inequality:

"Custom and nature are generally at variance with one another; … for by the rule of nature, that only is the more disgraceful which is the greater evil; as, for example, to suffer injustice; but by the rule of custom, to do evil is the more disgraceful. For this suffering of injustice is not the part of a man, but of a slave, who indeed had better die than live; for when he is wronged and trampled upon, he is unable to help himself or any other about whom he cares. The reason, as I conceive, is that the makers of laws are the many weak; and they make laws and distribute praises and censures with a view to themselves and their own interests; and they terrify the mightier sort of men, and those who are able to get the better of them, in order that they may not get the better of them; and they say that dishonesty is shameful and unjust; meanwhile, when they speak of injustice, they desire to have more than their neighbors, for knowing their own inferiority, they are only too glad of equality. And therefore, this seeking to have more than the many is conventionally said to be shameful and unjust, and is called injustice, whereas nature herself intimates that it is just for the better to have more than the worse, the more powerful than the weaker; and in many ways she shows, among men as well as among animals, and indeed among whole cities and races, that justice consists in the superior ruling over and having more than the inferior. For on what principle of justice did Xerxes invade Hellas, or his father the Scythians? (not to speak of numberless other examples). They, I conceive, act according to nature; yes, and according to the law of nature; not perhaps, according to that artificial law which we frame and fashion, taking the best and strongest of us from their youth upwards, and taming them like young lions, and charming them with the sound of the voice, saying to them that with equality they must be content, and that this is the honorable and the just. But if there were a man who had sufficient force, he would shake off and break through and escape from all this; he would trample under foot all our formulas and spells and charms, and all our laws, sinning against nature; the slave would rise in rebellion and be lord over us, and the light of natural justice would shine forth. And this I take to be the lesson of Pindar, in the poem in which he says that

"'Law is the King of all, mortals as well as immortals!'

This, as he says:

"'Makes might to be right, and does violence with exalted hand; as

I infer from the deeds of Heracles, for without buying them——'

"I do not remember the exact words, but the meaning is, that he carried off the oxen of Geryon without buying them, and without their being given to him by Geryon, according to the law of natural right, and that the oxen and other possessions of the weaker and inferior properly belong to the stronger and superior." (Plato, Gorgias, 482–4.)

The essence of this view is, therefore, that might is right, and that no legislation or conventional code ought to stand in the way of the free assertion of genius and power. It is similar to the teaching of Nietzsche in recent times.

But the other side had its complaint also. The laws are made by the "shepherds" of the people, as Homer called them. But who is now so simple as to suppose that the "shepherds" fatten or tend the sheep with a view to the good of the sheep, and not to their own good? All laws and governments really exist for the interest of the ruling class.[65] They rest upon convention or "institution," not upon "nature."

Why Obey Laws?—And if laws and social codes are but class legislation, conventional, why obey them? The older Greek life had felt the motives described in Chapter IV., though it had embodied them in symbolism and imagery. The Nemesis that followed the guilty, the Erinnys, or avenging goddesses, were the personified wrath of outraged law; aidōs, respect or reverence, aischyne, regard for public opinion, were the inner feelings. But with the advancing tide of intellectual criticism and individual interest, these sanctions were discredited; feelings of personal enjoyment demanded recognition, and the moralists at first appealed to this. "Parents and tutors are always telling their sons and their wards that they are to be just; but only not for the sake of justice, but for the sake of character and reputation." But if the only reason for justice is reputation, there might seem to be no sufficient reason for taking the thorny path, if there be an easier. Will not the youth say, in the words of Pindar:

"Can I by justice, or by crooked ways of deceit, ascend a loftier tower which may be a fortress to me all my days?"[66]

And if I decide that the crooked way is the easier, why shall I not follow it? My party, or my "union", or my lawyer will stand by and see me through:

"But I hear some one exclaiming that the concealment of wickedness is often difficult; to which I answer, Nothing great is easy. Nevertheless, the argument indicates this, if we would be happy, to be the path along which we should proceed. With a view to concealment we will establish secret brotherhoods and political clubs. And there are professors of rhetoric who teach the art of persuading courts and assemblies; and so, partly by persuasion and partly by force, I shall make unlawful gains and not be punished. Still I hear a voice saying that the gods cannot be deceived, neither can they be compelled. But what if there are no gods? or, suppose them to have no care of human things, why in either case should we mind about concealment?"[67]

Besides, the greatest prizes, not only in material goods, but even in the line of reputation, seemed to fall to the individualist if he could only act on a sufficiently large scale. He could then be both prosperous and "respectable." If he could steal the government, or, in modern phrase, bribe a legislature to elect him to Congress, pass special legislation, or grant a franchise, he could not merely escape punishment, but be honored by his fellows.

"I am speaking of injustice on a large scale, in which the advantage of the unjust is most apparent, and my meaning will be most clearly seen in that highest form of injustice, the perpetrator of which is the happiest of men, as the sufferers of these who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable—I mean tyranny which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not retail but wholesale; comprehending in one things sacred as well as profane, private and public, for any one of which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating them singly, he would be punished and incur great dishonor; for they who are guilty of any of these crimes in single instances are called robbers of temples and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a man has taken away the money of the citizens and made slaves of them, then instead of these dishonorable names, he is called happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For injustice is censured because the censurers are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest."[68]