Page:Philosophical Review Volume 11.djvu/72



This work is practically identical, the author tells us, with one which was awarded the "Green Moral Philosophy Prize" in the University of Oxford for the year 1899, the topic proposed to competitors for discussion being "The Reciprocal Relations between Ethics and Metaphysics." By way of explaining the fact that a work undertaken in such a connection should contain a whole chapter of polemic directed against Green, Mr. Taylor remarks in his preface that he deems it a real service to Green's memory "to disentangle his admirable account of moral institutions from the untenable metaphysical assumptions of the earlier chapters of the Prolegomena to Ethics." The author's prefatory acknowledgment of far-reaching indebtedness to Bradley 's Appearance and Reality—a debt of which the frequent references to Bradley's works in footnotes is but an inadequate expression—indicates the general tenor of the thought. The standpoint as a whole may be fairly characterized as a criticism of Green from the point of view of Bradley. The work represents also a doctrine that is being preached at present by many different voices, and with many different shades of opinion. We have here still another declaration of the necessity of rendering ethics independent of metaphysics. The data of ethics, like those of modern psychology, are not to be prejudged by any metaphysical bias, but must be subjected to the same method of treatment that is applicable in all the natural sciences. This main thesis is to be established by elaborate reviews of the facts, and by analyses of average moral judgments. The distinction between what actually is and what ought to be will not bear scrutiny. We must appeal to the facts, and ask what are the actual standards recognized by mankind. Such questions, which give rise to detailed investigations into the actual ethical practices and theories of present or past society, can alone give us insight into the nature of moral ideals. 'Experience' is the sole source of our knowledge of matters ethical as it is of all else, the "high priori road" being merely a fiction of philosophers.

The introductory chapter of the volume, which states the problem to be raised, contains what the author, borrowing Aristotle's phraseology, terms a 'logical' or abstract discussion of the same material