Page:Philosophical Review Volume 26.djvu/45

No. 1.] 'our.' Is 'we' the plural of 'I,' or is 'I' the singular of 'we'? Perhaps one is the case when we mean 'you and I.' But perhaps the other is the case when we do no adding but identify ourselves with a larger unit which is the main conception. Such is the attitude of the business man toward the Firm; such the attitude of the child in many of the family situations; such is the member of the tribe or clan, of the 'we-group' as over against the 'others-group.' This was a point of view that never became sufficiently clear to dominate earlier thought. For want of it there were disputes as to how an individual could become generalized in his sympathy or could recognize the claims of others. It was sometimes held that in reason he might become universal and thus autonomous, but inasmuch as man is not a sheer rational essence the full problem of duty was not met. Or again it was held that by sympathy or association he might generalize his motives, but with sympathy conceived as a contagion or imitation of emotions there was still no explanation of a genuine social interest or a genuine autonomy. The conception of group life in which the whole determines the parts as truly as parts determine the whole gave concrete imagery to the conceptions that had been present indeed to Plato and Aristotle and had hovered as "mere idea" before Kant, but had not entered into actual psychology or ethics in a determining fashion.

This conception of group life has centered attention more fruitfully upon custom. Custom is ordinarily conceived chiefly as usage or habit. The temporal aspect of repetition is prominent. But it needs little reflection to discover that it is only the custom of our group that has any binding force upon us. Something may have been done from time immemorial; unless it has been so done in our group, our country, our family, our class, it is merely a curiosity; it will not be recognized by judges as a source of law, nor by men as a reason for conduct. The custom that binds is a folk way, it is of the ethos of a group. To become not merely folkways but mores there must be a judgment of value. The things not to be done will be taboo. There are then besides supernatural sanctions, we have learned,