The Moral Economy

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Title: The Moral Economy

Author: Ralph Barton Perry

Release Date: July 24, 2007 [eBook #22135]

Language: English

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MORAL ECONOMY***

E-text prepared by Al Haines

Transcriber's note:

Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book. For its Index, a page number has been placed only at the start of that section.

THE MORAL ECONOMY

by

RALPH BARTON PERRY

Assistant Professor of Philosophy in Harvard University

Author of

  The Free Man and the Soldier

  The Moral Economy

  The Approach to Philosophy

Charles Scribner's Sons

New York — Chicago — Boston — Atlanta

San Francisco — Dallas

Copyright, 1909, by Charles Scribner's Sons All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of Charles Scribner's Sons

DEDICATED TO N.

MARCH 30, 1909

Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be; why then should we desire to be deceived?

BISHOP BUTLER.

{vii}

PREFACE

This little book is the preliminary sketch of a system of ethics. Its form differs from that of most contemporary books on the subject because of the omission of the traditional controversies. I have attempted to study morality directly, to derive its conceptions and laws from an analysis of life. I have made this attempt because, in the first place, I believe that theoretical ethics is seriously embarrassed by its present emphasis on the history and criticism of doctrines; by its failure to resort to experience, where without more ado it may solve its problems on their merits. But, in the second place, I hope that by appealing to experience and neglecting scholastic technicalities, I may connect ethical theory with every-day reflection on practical matters. Morality is, without doubt, the most human and urgent of all topics of study; and I should like, if possible, to make it appear so.

The references which I have embodied in the notes are intended to serve the English reader as an introduction to accessible and untechnical literature on the subjects treated in the several chapters. These chapters coincide with the main divisions of ethical inquiry: Goodness, Duty, Virtue, Progress, Culture, and Religion. And although so brief a treatment of so large a programme is impossible without sacrifice of thoroughness, it does provide both a general survey of the field, and a varied application of certain fundamental ideas.

RALPH BARTON PERRY. CAMBRIDGE, 1909.

{ix}

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I PAGE MORALITY AS THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

I. THE GENERAL CLAIMS OF MORALITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The practical necessity of morality, 1. The interplay of dogmatism and scepticism, 4. The fundamental character of morality, 7.

II. GOODNESS IN GENERAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

The dependence of value on life, 9. Definition of the simpler terms of value. Goodness: the fulfilment of interest, 11. Good and good for, 12.

III. MORAL GOODNESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

The moral organization of life, 13. Definition of the terms of moral value. Moral goodness: the fulfilment of an economy of interests, 15. Moral goodness and pleasure, 16. Rightness or virtue, 18. Morality and life, 19.

IV. MORALITY AND NATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

The alleged artificiality of morality, 20. Morality and the struggle for existence, 21. Morality and adaptation, 22. Morality is natural if life is, 24.

V. MORALITY AND CONFLICT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Morality and competitive struggle. Morality the condition of strength, 24. The value of conflict, 23. The elimination of conflict, 26. Morality and the love of life, 27.

VI. THE DIGNITY AND LUSTRE OF MORALITY . . . . . . . . . . . 28

The effect of war on sentiment and the imagination, 28. Real power is constructive, not destructive or repressive, 29. Moral heroism, 31. The saving or provident character of morality, 32. Morality and the consummation of life, 33.

CHAPTER II

THE LOGIC OF THE MORAL APPEAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

I. THE STAND-POINT OF RATIONALISM AND INDIVIDUALISM . . . . 34

Modern individualism, 34. Distinguished from scepticism, 36. The individual as the organ of knowledge, 37. Moral individualism as a protest against convention, 39. Duty as the rational ground of action, 40. Reasonableness a condition of the consciousness of duty, 41.

II. THE LOGIC OF PRUDENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

  Prudence as elementary, 43. Interest, action, and

  goodness, 43. The alleged relativity of goodness, 43.

  The conflict of interests solved by conciliation, 48.

  The limits of prudence, 49.

III. THE LOGIC OF PREFERENCE AND PURPOSE . . . . . . . . . . 50

The adoption of new interests and the problem of preference, 50. A hypothetical solution of the problem, 51. Solution in the concrete case through the organization of a purpose, 53. The principle of the objective validity of interests, 54. The principle of the quantitative basis of preference, 55.

IV. THE LOGIC OF IMPARTIALITY AND JUSTICE . . . . . . . . . 57

The private interest, 57. The personal factor negligible in counting interests, 58. The refutation of egoism. The first proposition of egoism, 59. The second proposition of egoism, 61. Impartiality as a part of justice, 63. Justice as imputing finality to the individual, 64. The equality of rational beings as organs of truth, 64. Summary of justice, 66.

V. THE LOGIC OF GOOD-WILL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

  All interests are entitled to consideration, 67.

  Goodwill and the growth of new interests, 67.

VI. DUTY AND THE IMAGINATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

The logical imagination, 69. Rationalism and incentive to action, 70. Rationalism and faith, 71.

CHAPTER III

THE ORDER OF VIRTUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

I. THE VIRTUES AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION . . . . . . . . . . 72

Summary of the content and logic of moral value, 72. Virtues as verified rules of life, 73. The material and formal aspects of morality, 74. Materialism and formalism due to exaggeration, 75. The general importance of the conflict between the material and formal motives, 76. Duty identified with the formal motive, 76. Formalism less severely condemned, 77. The five economies of interest, 77. Summary of virtues and vices, 79. Table, 81.

II. THE ECONOMY OF THE SIMPLE INTEREST . . . . . . . . . . . 82

The simple interest not a moral economy, 82. Satisfaction the root-value, and intelligence the elementary virtue, 82. Incapacity, 83. Overindulgence the first form of materialism, 84. It is due to lack of foresight, 85. Or to the complexity of interests, 86. Overindulgence as the original sin, 86.

III. THE RECIPROCITY OF INTERESTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Prudence as a principle of organization, 87. Moderation and thrift, 87. Honesty, veracity, and tact of the prudential form, 88. The inherent value of the prudential economy. Individual and social health, 88. Temperance and reason, 90. Prudential formalism, or asceticism, 92. Asceticism illustrated by the Cynics, 92. Prudential materialism or sordidness, 94. Aimlessness or idleness, 94.

IV. THE INCORPORATION OF INTERESTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Purpose as a principle of organization. Its intellectual character, 95. The virtues subsidiary to purpose, 95. Truthfulness in the purposive economy, 96. The value of achievement, 97. The formalistic error of sentimentalism, 98. Deferred living, 98. Nationalism, 99. Egoism and bigotry as types of materialism. The pride of opinion, 100. Egoism and bigotry involve injustice, 103. The meaning of injustice, 103.

V. THE FRATERNITY OF INTERESTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Justice as a principle of organization, 105. Justice conditions rational intercourse, 105. Discussion, freedom, and tolerance, 106. Anarchism and scepticism, 107. Laissez-faire, 108. Justice and materialism. Worldliness, 110. Ancient worldliness due to lack of pity, 110. Modern worldliness due to lack of imagination, 111.

VI. THE UNIVERSAL SYSTEM OF INTERESTS . . . . . . . . . . . 112

The economy of good-will, 112. Good-will as the condition of real happiness. Paganism and Christianity, 113. Merely formal good-will is mysticism, 116. Mysticism perverts life by denying this world, 118. Quietism, 119. Mystical perversion of moral truth, 120.

VII. SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

The interworking of the formal and the material principles, 121. Importance of the formal principle. Manners and worship, 121.

CHAPTER IV

THE MORAL TEST OF PROGRESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

I. THE GENERAL THEORY OF PROGRESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

The philosophy of history, 123. The meaning of progress, 125. Progress and the Quantitative basis of preference, 127. The method of superimposition as a test of progress, 127.

CONTENTS

II. THE EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL PRINCIPLES OF PROGRESS . . . . 130

The external principle: the pressure of an unfavorable environment, 130. The external and the internal principle, 131. The internally progressive type of society. The importance of discussion, 132. Rationality the internal principle of progress, 134. The positive motive: constructive reform, 134. Disinterested reflection and the man of affairs, 136. Success depends on moral capacity, 137. The negative motive: revolution, 139. Christianity as a social revolution, 140. The French Revolution, 141. Dependence of progress on the historical connectedness of human life, 143.

III. CONSERVATISM AND RADICALISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Conservatism values the existing order, 144. Progress requires the maintenance and use of order, 145. The real radical not the sceptic but the rationalist, 145. The justification of the radical, 146.

IV. PROGRESS IN THE INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT . . . . . . . 147

Institutions are permanent moral necessities, 147. Government as the interest both of the weak and of the strong, 148. The moral necessity of government, 150. The variable and progressive factor in government, 151. The principle of rationality in government, 152. The benefits and cost of government in the ancient military monarchy, 152. Solidarity of interest in the Greek and Roman oligarchies, 154. Advance in liberality in Athenian institutions, 156. The development of modern institutions, 157. The modern idea of democracy, 158. Summary of the modern state. It is territorial and impersonal, 160. The representative method, 160. Emphasis on internal policy and international peace, 162.

V. THE QUALITY OF CONTEMPORARY LIBERALISM . . . . . . . . . 163

Democracy based not on pity but on enlightenment, 163. The respect for the opinion of those most interested, 164. The spirit of modern justice, 165. Sensitiveness to life, 166. The allowance for growth, 167. The individual and the crowd, 168. Hopefulness and the bias of maturity, 169. The work done and the work to do, 170.

CHAPTER V

THE MORAL CRITICISM OF FINE ART . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

I. THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE MORAL CRITICISM OF ART . . . . . 171

The higher activities of civilization, 171. The attempt to apply aesthetic standards to life, 172. The claim of art to exemption from moral criticism is based on misapprehension. Morality not a special interest, but the fundamental interest, 174. Morality does not substitute its canons for those of art, 175.

II. DEFINITION OF ART AND THE ESTHETIC INTEREST . . . . . . 176

Art as the adaptation of the environment to interest, 176. Industrial art and fine art, 177. The aesthetic interest: the interest in apprehension, 179. The interest in sensation and perception, 181. The emotional interest, 182. Instinct and emotion in the aesthetic experience. Poetry and music, 183. The interest in discernment, 185. The representative element in art exemplified in Greek sculpture, 185. And in Italian painting of the Renaissance, 187. Levels and blendings of the aesthetic interest, 189. The moral criticism of the aesthetic interest, 190.

III. THE SELF-SUFFICIENCY OF THE AESTHETIC INTEREST . . . . 192

The aesthetic interest is capable of continuous development, 192. And is resourceful, 192. But tends on that account to be narrow and quiescent, 192.

IV. THE PERVASIVENESS OF THE ESTHETIC INTEREST . . . . . . . 194

The aesthetic interest may supply interest where there is none, or enhance other interests, 194. But it must not be allowed to replace other interests, 195.

V. THE VICARIOUS FUNCTION OF THE AESTHETIC INTEREST . . . . 197

Other interests may be represented by the aesthetic interest, 197. The danger of confusing vicarious fulfilment with real fulfilment, 198. And of being aesthetically satisfied with failure, 199.

VI. ART AS A MEANS OF STIMULATING ACTION . . . . . . . . . . 201

Art is a source of motor excitation,201. But such excitation is morally indeterminate, 201. Such influences must be selected with reference to their effect on moral purpose, 202.

VII. ART AS A MEANS OF FIXING IDEAS . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

The higher practical ideas have no other concrete embodiment than art, 203. Art both fixes ideas and arouses sentiment in their behalf, 204. But if art is to serve this end it must be true, 205. Untruth in art, 206. Universality and particularity in art, 207. Art may invest ideas with a fictitious value, 208.

VIII. THE LIBERALITY OF THE AESTHETIC INTEREST . . . . . . . 209

Art is unworldly, 209. The aesthetic intercourse promotes social intercourse on a high plane, 210.

IX. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

When subjected to moral control, art may make the environment harmonious with morality, 212.

CHAPTER VI

THE MORAL JUSTIFICATION OF RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

I. THE DEFINITION OF RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

The sound practical motive in religion, 214. Religion as belief, 216. Summary definition of religion, 218.

II. THE TESTS OF RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

The measure of religion, extensive and intensive, 218. The test of truth the fundamental test, 220. The therapeutic test, and its confusion of the issue, 222. The two forms of the truth test, cosmological and ethical, 224. The working of these critical principles, 226. Cosmology and ethics are independent of religion, 228. The optimistic bias, 231. Summary of religious development, 231.

III. SUPERSTITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

The prudential character of superstition, 232. The ethical idea in primitive religion, 233. The cosmological idea, 234. The method of primitive religion, 235. Superstition in Christianity, 235. The ethical and cosmological correction of superstition, 236.

IV. TUTELARY RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

The deity identified with the purpose of the worshipper, 237. The national religion of the Assyrians and Egyptians, 238. The correction of tutelary religion, 239.

V. PHILOSOPHICAL RELIGION. METAPHYSICAL IDEALISM . . . . . 241

Religion formally enlightened, 241. Metaphysical and moral idealism, 242. The inherent difficulty in metaphysical idealism, 242. The swing from formalism to materialism. Pessimism, other-worldliness, mysticism, panlogism and aesthetic idealism, 243. Aesthetic idealism falsifies experience and discredits moral distinctions, 246.

VI. MORAL IDEALISM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

Moral idealism reflects moral judgment, 248. Evil real but not deliberately perpetrated. The knowledge of evil, 249. The ground of moral idealism, 252.

VII. THE GENERIC VALUE OF RELIGION . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

Religion morally inevitable, 252. The value of the religious generalization of life, 253. The immediate reward of service, 254. Religion and moral enthusiasm, 254. Culture and religion, 255.

NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

{1}

THE MORAL ECONOMY

CHAPTER I

MORALITY AS THE ORGANIZATION OF LIFE

In the words with which this book is inscribed, Bishop Butler conveys with directness and gravity the conviction that morality is neither a mystery nor a convention, but simply an observance of the laws of provident living. Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be: why then should we desire to be deceived? [1] This appeal, commonplace enough, but confident and true, sounds the note with which through all that follows I shall hope to keep in unison.

It is because he professes to believe that morality is an imposture that must be smuggled into society behind the back of reason, that Nietsche makes a merit of its dulness. It is desirable, he says, that as few people as possible should reflect upon morals, and consequently it is very desirable that morals should not some day become interesting! [2] He confesses that he sees no occasion for alarm! But the dulness of {2} morality testifies only to its homeliness and antiquity. For to be moral is simply to be intelligent, to be right-minded and open-minded in the unavoidable business of living. Morality is a collection of formulas and models based solidly on experience of acts and their consequences; it offers the most competent advice as to how to proceed with an enterprise, whether large or small. It is the theory and technique which underlies the art of conduct; that master-workman, by whom kings reign and princes decree justice; possessed by the Lord in the beginning of his way, and whom to hate is to love death.

It is worth while to remark and proclaim such a conviction as this only because mankind has so treacherous a memory, and so fatuous a habit of disowning its most precious and dearly won possessions. Cardinal truths are periodically overlaid with sophistication, blended with tentative opinion, and identified with the instruments of the day. There results a confusion of mind that fails to distinguish the essence from the accident, and aims to destroy where there is need to rectify. Because government is clumsy and costly, it is proposed to abolish government; because education is