Philosophy

different times, or even at the same time, and even if he is solitary, like Robinson Crusoe. Let us see how the concept of “good” emerges from reflection or conflicts of desires. We will begin with Robinson Crusoe. In him there will be conflicts, for example, between fatigue and hunger, particularly between fatigue at one time and foreseen hunger at another. The effort which he will require in order to work when he is tired with a view to providing food on another occasion has all the characteristics of what is called a moral effort: we think better of a man who makes the effort than of one who does not, and the making of it requires self-control. For some reason, this sort of thing is called, not morals, but “morale”; the distinction, however, seems to me illusory. Robinson Crusoe is bound to realise that he has many desires, each of which is stronger at one time than at another, and that, if he acts always upon the one that is strongest at the moment, he may defeat others that are stronger in the long run. So far, only intelligence is involved; but one may assume that, with the progress of intelligence, there goes a growing desire for a harmonious life, i.e. a life in which action is dominated by consistent quasi-permanent desires. Again: some desires, in addition to the desire for a harmonious life, are more likely to lead to harmony then certain other desires. Intellectual curiosity, e.g. affords a mild diffused satisfaction, whereas drugs provide ecstasy followed by despair. If we arrive unexpectedly in Robinson Crusoe’s island and find him studying botany, we shall think better of him than if we find him dead drunk on his last bottle of whisky. All this belongs to morals, although it is purely self-regarding. When we come to considering men in society, moral questions become both more important and more difficult, because conflicts between the desires of different persons are harder to resolve than internal conflicts among the desires of one person. There are some distinctions to be made. First, there is the difference between the point of view of the neutral authority contemplating a squabble in which it is not interested, and the point of view of the disputants themselves. Then there is the distinction between what we wish people to do, and what we wish them to feel in the way of emotions and desires. The view of authority everywhere is that squabbles to which it is not a party are undesirable, but that in the squabbles to which it is a party virtue consists in promoting the victory of authority. In the latter respect, it is acting, not as an authority, but merely as a combination of quarrelsome individuals who think it more profitable to quarrel with outsiders than with each other; we will therefore ignore this aspect of authority, and consider its action only when it is a neutral. In this case, it aims at preventing quarrels by punishing those who begin them, or sometimes by punishing both parties. Monsieur Huc, the Jesuit missionary who wrote a fascinating account of his travels in China, Tartary, and Tibet about eighty years ago, relates an amusing conversation he had with a mandarin. Monsieur Huc had remarked that Chinese justice was dilatory, expensive, and corrupt. The mandarin explained that it had been made so in obedience to an Imperial edict, setting forth that the subjects of the Son of Heaven had become too much addicted to litigation, and must be led to abandon this practice. The rescript then proceeded to suggest to magistrates and judges the desirability of the above defects as a means of diminishing the number of law-suits. It appeared that the Emperor’s commands had been faithfully obeyed in this respect—more so than in some others. Another method adopted by public authorities to prevent the impulse towards internal quarrels is the creation of esprit de corps, public spirit, patriotism, etc., i.e. a concentration of quarrelsome impulses or persons outside the group over which it rules. Such a method, obviously, is partial and external; it would not be open to a world-wide democratic authority, should this ever come into existence. Such an authority would have to adopt better methods of producing harmony; it would also have a higher claim to the obedience of citizens than some authorities have at present. What can we say from the point of view of the disputants themselves? It is of course obvious that there will be a greater total satisfaction when two people’s desires harmonise than when they conflict, but that is not an argument which can be used to people who in fact hate each other. One can argue that the one who is going to be beaten would do well to give way, but each will think that he himself is going to be victorious. One can argue that there is more happiness to be derived from love than from hate, but people cannot love to order, and there is no satisfaction to be derived from an insincere love. Nor is it always true in an individual case that love brings more happiness than hate. During and immediately after the war, those who hated the Germans were happier than those who still regarded them as human beings, because they could feel that what was being done served a good purpose. I think, therefore, that certain departments of morals, and those the most important, cannot be inculcated from a personal point of view, but only from the point of view of a neutral authority. That is why I said that ethics is mainly social. The attitude of a neutral authority would, it seems to me, be this: Men desire all sorts of things, and in themselves all desires, taken singly, are on a level, i.e. there is no reason to prefer the satisfaction of one to the satisfaction of another. But when we consider not a single desire but a group of desires, there is this difference, that sometimes all the desires in a group can be satisfied, whereas in other cases the satisfaction of some of the desires in the group is incompatible with that of others. If A and B desire to marry each other, both can have what they want, but if they desire to kill each other, at most one can succeed, unless they are Kilkenny cats. Therefore the former pair of desires is socially preferable to the latter. Now our desires are a product of three factors: native disposition, education, and present circumstances. The first factor is difficult to deal with at present, for lack of knowledge. The third is brought into operation by means of the criminal law, economic motives, and social praise and blame, which make it on the whole to the interest of an individual in a community to promote the interests of the dominant group in that community. But this is done in an external way, not by creating good desires, but by producing a conflict of greed and fear in which it is hoped that fear will win. The really vital method is education, in the large sense in which it includes care of the body and habit-formation in the first few years. By means of education, men’s desires can be changed, so that they act spontaneously in a social fashion. To force a man to curb his desires, as we do by the criminal law, is not nearly so satisfactory as to cause him genuinely to feel the desires which promote socially harmonious conduct. And this brings me to the last point with which we are concerned, namely, the distinction between feeling and doing. No doubt, from a social point of view the important thing is what a man does, but it is impossible to cause a man to do the right things consistently unless he has the right desires. And the right desires cannot be produced merely by praising them or by desiring to have them; the technique of moral education is not one of exhortation or explicit moral instruction. We can now state the ethic at which we have arrived in abstract terms. Primarily, we call something “good” when we desire it, and “bad” when we have an aversion from it. But our use of words is more constant than our desires, and therefore we shall continue to call a thing good even at moments when we are not actually desiring it, just as we always call grass green though it sometimes looks yellow. And the laudatory associations of the word “good” may generate a desire which would not otherwise exist: we may want to eat caviare merely because we are told that it is good. Moreover the use of words is social, and therefore we learn only to call a thing good, except in rare circumstances, if most of the people we associate with are also willing to call it good. Thus “good” comes to apply to things desired by the whole of a social group. It is evident, therefore, that there can be more good in a world where the desires of different individuals harmonise than in one where they conflict. The supreme moral rule should, therefore, be: Act so as to produce harmonious rather than discordant desires. This rule will apply wherever a man’s influence extends: within himself, in his family, his city, his country, even the world as a whole, if he is able to influence it. There will be two main methods to this end: first, to produce social institutions under which the interests of different individuals or groups conflict as little as possible; second, to educate individuals in such a way that their desires can be harmonised with each other and with the desires of their neighbours. As to the first method, I shall say nothing further, since the questions that arise belong to politics and economics. As to the second, the important period is the formative period of childhood, during which there should be health, happiness, freedom, and a gradual growth of self-discipline through opportunities for difficult achievement of a sort which is useful and yet satisfies the impulse towards mastery of the environment. The desire for power, which is present in most people and strongest in the most vigorous, should be directed towards power over things rather than over people. It is clear that, if harmonious desires are what we should seek, love is better than hate, since, when two people love each other, both can be satisfied, whereas when they hate each other one at most can achieve the object of his desire. It is obvious also that desire for knowledge is to be encouraged, since the knowledge that a man acquires is not obtained by taking it away from some one else; but a desire for (say) large landed estates can only be satisfied in a small minority. Desire for power over other people is a potent source of conflict, and is therefore to be discouraged; a respect for the liberty of others is one of the things that ought to be developed by the right kind of education. The impulse towards personal achievement ought to go into such things as artistic creation or scientific discovery or the promotion of useful institutions—in a word, into activities that are creative rather than possessive. Knowledge, which may do positive harm where men’s desires conflict (for example, by showing how to make war more deadly), will have only good results in a world where men’s desires harmonise, since it tends to show how their common desires are to be realised. The conclusion may be summed up in a single phrase: The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.11 11 Cf. What I Believe, by the present author—To-day and To-morrow Series.