Part 39

We have already given a slight sketch of the historical process here characterized in the barest logical terms.

Further consideration of the problem of factual judgment must be deferred to Part V.

The relation of the empirical self to the "energetic" and to standards will come in for statement in Part V in the connection just referred to.

It might be possible to construct a "logic" of these various types of working moral standard in such a way as to show that in each type there is implied the one next higher morphologically, and ultimately the highest--that is, some sort of concept of the "energetic" self.

It matters not at all whether, in ethics or metaphysics, our universal be abstract or on the other hand "concrete," like Green's conception of the self, or a "Hegelian" Absolute. Its logical use in the determination of particulars must be essentially the same in either case.

In this connection reference may be made to MR. TAYLOR'S recent work, The Problem of Conduct. Mr. Taylor reduces the moral life to terms of an ultimate conflict between the ideals of egoism and social justice, holding that the conflict is in theory irreconcilable. With this negative attitude toward current standards in ethical theory one may well be in accord without accepting Mr. Taylor's further contention that a theory of ethics is therefore impossible. Because the "ethics of subsumption" is demonstrably futile it by no means follows that a method of ethics cannot be developed along the lines of modern scientific logic which shall be as valid as the procedure of the investigator in the sciences. Mr. Taylor's logic is virtually the same as that of the ethical theories which he criticises; because an ethical ideal is impossible, a theory of ethics is impossible also. One is reminded of MR. BRADLEY'S criticism of knowledge in the closing chapters of the Logic as an interesting parallel.

MR. BOSANQUET'S discussion of the place of the principle of teleology in analogical inference will be found suggestive in this connection (Logic, Vol. II, chap. iii).

See above, p. 243 and p. 259 ad fin.

We use the expression "energy-equivalent" because the "excess" gained by the self through the past adjustment is not of importance at just this point. The essential significance of the means now is not that they "cost" less than they promised to bring in in energy, but that because they required sacrifice the self will now lose unless they are allowed to fulfil the promise. They are the logical equivalent of the established modes of consumption from the standpoint of conservation of the energies of the self, not the mathematical equivalent.

It would be desirable, if there were space, to present a brief account of the psychological basis of the concepts of energy and energy-equivalence which here come into play, but this must be omitted.

Putting it negatively, the renunciation of the new end involves a "greater" sacrifice than all the sacrifices which adherence to the present system of consumption can compensate.

Green, as is well known, allows that any formulation of the ideal self must be incomplete, but holds that it is not for this reason useless. But this is to assume that development in the ideal is never to be radically reconstructive, that the ideal is to expand and fill out along established and unchangeable lines of growth so that all increase shall be in the nature of accretion. The self as a system is fixed and all individual moral growth is in the nature of approximation to this absolute ideal. This would appear to be essentially identical in a logical sense with Mr. Spencer's hypothesis of social evolution as a process of gradual approach to a condition of perfect adaptation of society and the individual to each other in an environment to which society is perfectly adapted--a condition in which "perfectly evolved" individuals shall live in a state of blessedness in conformity to the requirements of "absolute ethics." For a criticism of this latter type of view see MR. TAYLOR'S above-mentioned work (chap. v, passim).

For GREEN'S cautious defense of conscientiousness as a moral attitude see the Prolegomena to Ethics, Book IV, chap. i; and for a statement of the present point of view as bearing upon Green's difficulty, see DEWEY, The Study of Ethics: A Syllabus, p. 37 ad fin., and Philosophical Review, Vol. II, pp. 661, 662.

Along the line thus inadequately suggested might be found an answer to certain criticisms of the attempt to dispense with a metaphysical idea of the self. Such criticisms usually urge that without reference to a metaphysical ideal no meaning attaches to such conceptions as "adjustment," "expansion," "furtherance," and the like as predicated of the moral acts of an agent in their effect upon the "energetic" self. Anything that one may do, it is said, is expansive of the self, if it be something new, except as we judge it by a metaphysical ideal of a rightly expanded self. For an excellent statement of this general line of criticism see STRATTON, "A Psychological Test of Virtue," International Journal of Ethics, Vol. XI, p. 200.

The polemic of certain recent writers (as, for example, EHRENFELS in his System der Werttheorie) against the objectivity of judgments of value appears to rest upon an uncritical acceptance of the time-honored distinction between "primary" and "secondary" qualities as equivalent to the logical distinction of subjective and objective. Thus EHRENFELS confutes "das Vorurteil von der objectiven Bedeutung des Wertbegriffes" by explaining it as due to a misleading usage of speech expressive of "an impulse, deep-rooted in the human understanding, to objectify its presentations" and then goes on to say "We do not desire things because we recognize the presence in them of a mysterious impalpable essence of Value but we ascribe value to them because we desire them." (Op. cit., Bd. I, p. 2.) This may serve to illustrate the easy possibility of confusing the logical and psychological points of view, as likewise does EHRENFELS's formal definition of value. (Bd. I., p. 65.)

The essential dependence of factual judgment upon the rise of economic and ethical conflict is implied in the widely current doctrine of the teleological character of knowledge. It is indeed nowadays something like a commonplace to say in one sense or another that knowledge is relative to ends, but it is not always recognized by those who hold this view that an end never appears as such in consciousness alone. The end that guides in the construction of factual knowledge is an end in ethical or economic conflict with some other likewise indeterminate end in the manner above discussed.

See above, pp. 282, 283.

Cf. SCHILLER, Riddles of the Sphinx, chap. vii, §§ 10-14.

It would appear that the principle of the conservation of energy is valid only in the physical sphere; but the logical significance of this limitation cannot be here discussed.

That the assumption mentioned is the essential basis of the twin theories of associationism in psychology and hedonism in ethics is shown by DR. WARNER FITE in his article, "The Associational Conception of Experience," Philosophical Review, Vol. IX, pp. 283 ff. Cf. MR. BRADLEY's remarks on the logic of hedonism in his Principles of Logic, pp. 244-9.

The "energetic" self is apparently MR. BRADLEY'S fourth "meaning of self," the self as monad--"something moving parallel with the life of a man, or, rather, something not moving, but literally standing in relation to his successive variety" (Appearance and Reality [1st ed.] p. 86, in chap. ix, "The Meanings of the Self"). Mr. Bradley's difficulty appears to come from his desiring a psychological content for what is essentially a logical conception--a confusion (if we may be permitted the remark) which runs through the entire chapter to which we refer and is responsible for the undeniable and hopeless incoherency of the various meanings of the self, as Mr. Bradley therein expounds them. "If the monad stands aloof," says Mr. Bradley, "either with no character at all or a private character apart, then it may be a fine thing in itself, but it is a mere mockery to call it the self of a man" (p. 87). Surely this is to misconstrue and then find fault with that very character of essential logical apartness from any possibility of determination in point of descriptive psychological content which constitutes the whole value of the "energetic" self as a logical conception stimulative of the valuation-process and so inevitably of factual judgment. See pp. 258, 259, above. The reader may find for himself in Mr. Bradley's enumeration of meanings our concept of the empirical self. But surely the "energetic" and empirical selves would appear on our showing to have no necessary conflict with each other.

In the first of these inseparable aspects valuation is determinative of Rightness and Wrongness; in the second it presents the object as Good or Bad. See p. 259, above.

See, for example, WIESER, Natural Value (Eng. trans.), p. 17.

See pp. 307-12 above.

The illustration, as also the general principle which it here is used to illustrate, was suggested some years since by Professor G. H. Mead in a lecture course on the "History of Psychology," which the writer had the advantage of attending.

The conservative function of valuation may be further illustrated by reference to the well-known principle of marginal utility of which we have already made mention (p. 307 above), and which has played so great a part in modern economic theory. The value of the unit quantity of a stock of any commodity is, according to this principle, measured by the least important single use in the schedule of uses to which the stock as a whole is to be applied. Manifestly, then, adherence to this valuation placed upon the unit quantity is in so far conservative of the whole schedule and the marginal value is a "short-hand" symbol expressive of the value of the whole complex purpose presented in the schedule. Moreover, the increase of marginal value concurrently with diminution of the stock through consumption, loss, or reapplication is not indicative so much of a change of purpose as of determination to adhere to so much of the original program of consumption as may still be possible of attainment with the depleted supply of the commodity.

Thus except on this condition we should deny the propriety of speaking of the value of a friend or of a memento or sacred relic. The purpose of accurate definition of the function of such objects as these in the attainment of one's ends is foreign to the proper attitude of loving, prizing, or venerating them. We may ethically value the act of sacrifice for a friend or of solicitous care of the memento, but the object of our sacrifice or solicitude has simply the direct or immediate "qualitative" emotional character appropriate to the kinds of activity to which it is the adequate stimulus.

History of Philosophy (TUFT's translation), p. 117.