Page:Philosophical Review Volume 29.djvu/359

No. 4.] dogmatism or abstraction from the array just now referred to. Radicals of various schools match these with their less well-reasoned and not less abstract principles of group unity and interest—the worker's right to 'self-determination' and the control of industry, the creeds and disciplines of sects, the ' public services 'of industrial and other associations —with a choice ranging from la solidarité sociale to the freedom of the elementary physiological appetites, if one must have a formula of more comprehensive sweep.

The emancipation of the individual from the sway of lesser powers which ethics has proclaimed in the name of reason has thus been a doubtful contribution to modern life. Although as a matter of practical politics, we are told, it may seldom be justifiable to resist the state, it lies, nevertheless, in the province of no mere external authority to teach the individual his duty. In this assertion ethical theory is, in effect, at one with contemporary radical criticism of the state. By impressing upon the individual so transcendental a conception of moral autonomy and private judgment, ethics doubtless gains the assurance that he will measure the worth of its teaching by a 'rational' criterion which it is, naturally, quite sure of its ability to satisfy. It therefore acknowledges no obligation to afford the individual those concrete sorts of personal fulfillment in which, apart from the warnings of ethical theory, his ordinary loyalties and obediences, his self-regarding efforts and his sympathies toward others must find their sanction. But the change of venue and the immunity are dearly bought by ethics. The price paid for them is the unreadiness of ethics to guide and steady the various radicalisms of the day with a just conception of these moving powers in human