Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/121

 (1) It is always the self that deliberates. It asks, "Should I do this?" and "Should I do that?" In deliberation alternatives are brought before the self. These alternatives may simply be doing the action and leaving it undone. Or the alternatives may be conflicting desires. In the latter case the desires are brought into relation to the self as a whole, and the self deliberates which of the desires can most worthily be identified with itself. "The hackneyed example of moral deliberation is the case of an habitual drunkard under temptation. He has made a resolve to reform, but is now solicited again by the bottle. His moral triumph or failure literally consists in finding the right name for the case. If he says that it is a case of not wasting good liquor already poured out, or a case of not being churlish and unsociable when in the midst of friends, or a case of learning something at last about a brand of whisky he never met before, or a case of celebrating a public holiday, or a case of stimulating himself to a more energetic resolve in favour of abstinence than any he has ever yet made, then he is lost. His choice of the wrong name seals his doom. But if, in spite of all the plausible good names with which his thirsty fancy so copiously furnishes him, he unwaveringly clings to the truer bad name, and apperceives the case as that of 'being a drunkard, being a drunkard, being a drunkard,' his feet are planted on the road to salvation. He saves himself by thinking rightly." Or, as Professor Stout puts it, "The thought of getting drunk attracts the man; but the thought of his getting drunk