Page:Philosophical Review Volume 13.djvu/669

655 to be included in the act are such as the agent might reasonably have been expected to foresee; and in this the subjectivist is perfectly free to acquiesce, on grounds which we have already in part related. In a word, the object of moral judgment is a psychical event; and no ends of liberal, candid thought are to be gained by obscuring this fundamental truth. There is, however, an ulterior motive to this charge of one-sidedness in subjective ethics,—a hatred of mawkish sentimentalism and the felt need of a social uniformity which shall be strong enough to put a stop to unsafe individual vagaries. No refutation of the charge can, therefore, be adequate which fails to show that the social binding force of the moral ideal is not weakened by this theory. We have defined the moral ideal (substantially) as the notion of a man's complete self-satisfaction in his conduct,—terms which are in themselves not free from opprobrium. How, from such a standard, can anything more than a system (or chaos) of individual caprices be derived ? The problem is a real one and must be squarely faced. A partial, but ultimately unsatisfactory, answer is derived from the general theory of values. Though the immediate criterion is individual sentiment, yet we must observe that in this respect, as in others, men are not altogether peculiar. In fact, within certain social groups men's conceptions of right and wrong are remarkably uniform, a circumstance to be partly attributed to the survival value of such uniformity in the various grades of the social struggle for existence. The value of a bushel of wheat depends, in the last resort, on the varying appreciation of many individuals; but, despite striking exceptions, there is an approach to similarity in their needs and tastes for such a staple, and the demand for it is sufficiently dependable to give it a market price. The appreciation of veracity varies also from man to man and from age to age, but, for the most part, within narrow limits; and its worth in comparison with the various other ends with which it comes in conflict,—such as reputation, personal safety, mercenary gain,—is satisfactorily constant. But there are exceptions, and what of them? What of the habitual liar, to whom the telling of an untruth is an innocent pleasantry? What of the