Page:Philosophical Review Volume 20.djvu/98

84 of the disappearance of the illusion of individuality through sympathy, and the Hegelian doctrine of morality as obedience to the universal will. Its contents also represent nothing new, but, so far as Kant and Schopenhauer are concerned, will be of use to the beginner in the history of ethics. The attempt to show that law or custom is the source of the distinction between right and wrong is met by the assertion that "when we shape our acts with reference to law and custom, we regard these as representing our own will, as representing what we should decide were we to take the trouble to investigate the matter in question." The principles of logic are declared to be equally impotent to give us a moral code which we should ever dream of acknowledging where it required anything not demanded by desire. As against Sidgwick, Fouillée, and G. E. Moore, it is urged that identity, equality, and contradiction are categories that get meaning only as applied to some content. But moral judgments get their contents from standards which have their source in desire or approbation. Again, psychological theories which claim to show—whether without or with the aid of the theory of evolution—how altruism has arisen in some men can do nothing towards showing that it is obligatory for all men. The same is true of any theory of evolutional ethics whatever, no matter how successful it may be in proving that the cosmic process is working towards the ultimate extinction of the purely egoistic members of the race.

The majority of the author's criticisms seem to be, in the end, valid, though they too often fail to get the precise point of view of the writer criticised. Two matters, however, should not escape without mention. Dr. McConnell frequently uses the argument that a certain position must be false because it is incompatible with the fundamental principle of what I have called the idealistic theory. But the only serious argument offered in behalf of idealism is that all alternative systems break down at some point. Hence his argument runs in a circle. Even more objectionable is the attitude which the author persistently takes towards metaphysical theories. "The metaphysical way of leading an egoist to become an altruist," he writes "denies the efficacy of a method entirely scientific and positive, that is, resting solely on the facts of experience." Again he writes: "We must refuse to draw upon the resources of an invisible, transcendental, metempirical world. A justifiable obligation for man must be grounded in the actual nature of man, in his actual constitution, in his actual goods and purposes, that is to say, in his actual human will.'," [sic] Such crude statements are not calculated to advance the cause of empirical ethics among thoughtful students. The two ablest representatives of metaphysical ethics in this generation are T. H. Green and Martineau—