Page:Philosophical Review Volume 12.djvu/585

No. 5.] suffering, and acts of direct endeavor to prevent or mitigate suffering. Wrong acts are those by which suffering is inflicted or augmented, or those by which the prevention or mitigation of suffering is neglected. Hence pain alone, and not pleasure and pain, is the subject matter of morality and immorality. Now ethics needs for exact discussion a new nomenclature. The terms 'utility,' 'good,' 'welfare,' have non-moral application. Something is wanting to emphasize the all-important fact that morality deals with problems of pains. The words 'alypic' and 'alypism' are suggested in place of 'hedonic' and 'hedonism.' Now the conduct of the moral agent is concerned with two classes of pains, viz., those which he experiences, and those experienced by others. Hence personal and social morality. Again, pains arise from natural and supernatural causes. Hence secular and religious morality. Savage morality, owing to short-sightedness and a belief in the supernatural, is personal and religious; that of civilized man, through his foresight and knowledge of natural law, is social and secular. The psychological basis of morality is the instinctive effort to banish pain; therefore, morality is at first personal. Finally, through the enlargement of the individual self into the tribal self, morality becomes social. However, moral progress has not resulted from any change in the fundamental character of the moral sense, but rather from the extension of proprietary environment. Modern altruism is the mere extension of the feeling of self-protection. Conscience is composed of all the emotional impulses which tend to alleviate one's own pain and that of one's fellowmen, and it is attended by a belief that conduct directed by it will avert some pain. The beliefs that determine the deliverances of conscience are derived from authoritative training, but man must constantly inquire into their validity. It is sometimes objected to utilitarianism that it claims that pain is only alleviated by some other pain. This is not a valid criticism; for conscience prompts to action where a greater pain may be averted by a lesser. Self-sacrifice is thus required in varying degrees. This deliberate comparison of pains, however, does not and cannot take place in every case. In moral judgment allowance must be made for circumstances. An act is morally right if the agent sincerely believes that by so doing he avoids a greater evil. There is another province of ethics. Society is founded on reciprocal acts, hence, while return in kind is not desired, yet one is morally bound to bestow reciprocal gratification. A deliberate slight, even in conventionalities, is wrong.

The desiderata of a perfect human society are expressed by the three words, liberty, equality, fraternity. These three words are here studied from the point of view both of man and of animals. The first, liberty, leads to reflection on the general signification of instinct. The writer, rejecting absolute liberty as an illusion, defines liberty in the philosophical sense as