Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/150

 Social convention does not have the permanence and stability necessary to constitute the standard of moral judgment.

§ 4. The Standard as Feeling. When the average man becomes impressed with the inadequacy of social convention as the standard of moral judgment, he may not have clearly present to his mind the definite reasons which we have just assigned for rejecting its claims. He may merely come to feel for it a deep-seated distrust, of which he can give no explanation. He simply feels that social convention is not a satisfactory standard. And he is apt to come to the conclusion that there is really no standard, and that his own feelings, in which alone he cannot be mistaken, supply the only working test of the value of his actions. He feels good when he treats generously a man who has injured him, he feels satisfied when he has done his duty in business, he feels a rush of compassion when he assists a penniless orphan, he feels bad when he tells a lie or cheats at cards, and he feels angry and disgusted when he allows laziness to overcome his conviction that he ought to be at work.

Further, especially if his nature be sympathetic, he will be affected in much the same way by the actions of others. He feels that the man who treats his enemy generously is good, and he feels that the man who tells lies and cheats at cards is bad. Thus he comes to feel moral approval for all actions of a certain kind, whether performed by him or by others; and moral disapproval for all actions of another kind, whether they are his own or somebody else's. For instance, he feels moral approval