=Deliberation as Dramatic Rehearsal.=--We, indeed, estimate the import or significance of any present desire or impulse by forecasting what it would come or amount to if carried out; literally its consequences define its _consequence_, its meaning and importance. But if these consequences were conceived _merely as remote_, if their picturing did not at once arouse a present sense of peace, of fulfillment, or of dissatisfaction, of incompletion and irritation, the process of thinking out consequences would remain purely intellectual. It would be as barren of influence upon behavior as the mathematical speculations of a disembodied angel. Any actual experience of reflection upon conduct will show that every foreseen result at once stirs our present affections, our likes and dislikes, our desires and aversions. There is developed a running commentary which stamps values at once as good or evil. It is this direct sense of value, not the consciousness of general rules or ultimate goals, which finally determines the worth of the act to the agent. Here is the inexpugnable element of truth in the intuitional theory. Its error lies in conceiving this immediate response of appreciation as if it excluded reflection instead of following directly upon its heels. Deliberation is actually an imaginative rehearsal of various courses of conduct. We give way, _in our mind_, to some impulse; we try, _in our mind_, some plan. Following its career through various steps, we find ourselves in imagination in the presence of the consequences that would follow: and as we then like and approve, or dislike and disapprove, these consequences, we find the original impulse or plan good or bad. Deliberation is dramatic and active, not mathematical and impersonal; and hence it has the intuitive, the direct factor in it. The advantage of a mental trial, prior to the overt trial (for the act after all is itself also a trial, a proving of the idea that lies back of it), is that it is retrievable, whereas overt consequences remain. They cannot be recalled. Moreover, many trials may mentally be made in a short time. The imagining of various plans carried out furnishes an opportunity for many impulses which at first are not in evidence at all, to get under way. Many and varied direct sensings, appreciations, take place. When many tendencies are brought into play, there is clearly much greater probability that the capacity of self which is really needed and appropriate will be brought into action, and thus a truly reasonable happiness result. The tendency of deliberation to "polarize" the various lines of activity into opposed alternatives, into incompatible "either this or that," is a way of forcing into clear recognition the importance of the issue.
=The Good Man's Judgments as Standard.=--This explains the idea of Aristotle that only the good man is a good judge of what is really good.
Such an one will take satisfaction in the thought of noble ends and will recoil at the idea of base results. Because of his formed capacities, his organized habits and tendencies, he will respond to a suggested end with an emotion which confers its appropriate kind and shade of value.
The brave man is sensitive to all acts and plans so far as they involve energy and endurance in overcoming painful obstacles; the kindly man responds at once to the elements that affect the well-being of others.
The moral sense or direct appreciations of the good man may thus be said to furnish the standard of right and wrong. There are few persons who, when in doubt regarding a difficult matter of conduct, do not think of some other person in whose goodness they believe, and endeavor to direct and clinch their own judgment by imagining how such an one would react in a similar situation--what he would find congenial and what disagreeable. Or else they imagine what that other person would think of them if he knew of their doing such and such an act. And while this method cannot supply the standard of their own judgment, cannot determine the right or wrong for their own situations, it helps emancipate judgment from selfish partialities, and it facilitates a freer and more flexible play of imagination in construing and appreciating the situation.
§ 4. THE PLACE OF GENERAL RULES Between such a highly generalized and formal principle as that of Kant, and the judgment of particular cases, we have intermediate generalizations; rules which are broad as compared with individual deeds, but narrow as compared with some one final principle. What are their rational origin, place, and function? We have here again both the empirical and the intuitional theories of knowledge, having to deal with the same fundamental difficulty: What is the relation of the special rule to the general principle on one side and to the special case on the other? The more general, the more abstractly rational the rule, the vaguer and less applicable it is. The more definite and fixed it is, the greater the danger that it will be a Procrustean bed, mutilating the rich fullness of the individual act, or destroying its grace and freedom by making it conform servilely to a hard and fast rule. Our analysis will accordingly be devoted to bringing to light the conditions under which a rule may be rational and yet be of specific help.
=I. Intuitionalism and Casuistry.=--Utilitarianism at least holds that rules are derived from actual cases of conduct; hence there must be points of likeness between the cases to be judged and the rules for judging them. But rules which do not originate from a consideration of special cases, which simply descend out of the blue sky, have only the most mechanical and external relation to the individual acts to be judged. Suppose one is convinced that the rule of honesty was made known just in and of itself by a special faculty, and had absolutely nothing to do with the recollection of past cases or the forecast of possible future circumstances. How would such a rule apply itself to any particular case which needed to be judged? What bell would ring, what signal would be given, to indicate that just _this_ case is the appropriate case for the application of the rule of honest dealing? And if by some miracle this question were answered so one knows that here is a case for the rule of honesty, how would we know just what course in detail the rule calls for? For the rule, to be applicable to all cases, must omit the conditions which differentiate one case from another; it must contain only the very few similar elements which are to be found in all honest deeds. Reduced to this skeleton, not much would be left save the bare injunction to be honest whatever happens, leaving it to chance, the ordinary judgment of the individual, or to external authority to find out just _what_ honesty specifically means in the given case.
This difficulty is so serious that all systems which have committed themselves to belief in a number of hard and fast rules having their origin in conscience, or in the word of God impressed upon the human soul or externally revealed, always have had to resort to a more and more complicated procedure to cover, if possible, all the cases. The moral life is finally reduced by them to an elaborate formalism and legalism.
=Illustration in Casuistry.=--Suppose, for example, we take the Ten Commandments as a starting-point. They are only ten, and naturally confine themselves to general ideas, and ideas stated mainly in negative form. Moreover, the same act may be brought under more than one rule. In order to resolve the practical perplexities and uncertainties which inevitably arise under such circumstances, _Casuistry_ is built up (from the Latin _casus_, case). The attempt is made to foresee all the different cases of action which may conceivably occur, and provide in advance the exact rule for each case. For example, with reference to the rule "do not kill," a list will be made of all the different situations in which killing might occur:--accident, war, fulfillment of command of political superior (as by a hangman), self-defense (defense of one's own life, of others, of property), deliberate or premeditated killing with its different motives (jealousy, avarice, revenge, etc.), killing with slight premeditation, from sudden impulse, from different sorts and degrees of provocation. To each one of these possible cases is assigned its exact moral quality, its exact degree of turpitude and innocency.
Nor can this process end with overt acts; all the inner springs of action which affect regard for life must be similarly classified: envy, animosity, sudden rage, sullenness, cherishing of sense of injury, love of tyrannical power, hardness or hostility, callousness--all these must be specified into their different kinds and the exact moral worth of each determined. What is done for this one kind of case must be done for every part and phase of the entire moral life until it is all inventoried, catalogued, and distributed into pigeon-holes definitely labelled.
=Dangers of Casuistry.=--Now dangers and evils attend this way of conceiving the moral life, (a) _It tends to magnify the letter of morality at the expense of its spirit._ It fixes attention not upon the positive good in an act, not upon the underlying agent's disposition which forms its spirit, nor upon the unique occasion and context which form its atmosphere, but upon its literal conformity with Rule A, Class I., Species 1, sub-head (1), etc. The effect of this is inevitably to narrow the scope and lessen the depth of conduct. (i.) It tempts some to hunt for that classification of their act which will make it the most convenient or profitable for themselves. In popular speech, "casuistical" has come to mean a way of judging acts which splits hairs in the effort to find a way of acting that conduces to personal interest and profit, and which yet may be justified by some moral principle. (ii.) With others, this regard for the letter makes conduct formal and pedantic. It gives rise to a rigid and hard type of character illustrated among the Pharisees of olden and the Puritans of modern time--the moral schemes of both classes being strongly impregnated with the notion of fixed moral rules.
(b) _This ethical system also tends in practice to a legal view of conduct._--Historically it always has sprung from carrying over legal ideas into morality. In the legal view, liability to blame and to punishment inflicted from without by some superior authority, is necessarily prominent. Conduct is regulated through specific injunctions and prohibitions: Do this, Do not do that. Exactly the sort of analysis of which we have spoken above (p. 327) in the case of killing is necessary, so that there may be definite and regular methods of measuring guilt and assigning blame. Now the ideas of liability and punishment and reward are, as we shall see in our further discussion (chs. xvii. and xxi.), important factors in the conduct of life, but any scheme of morals is defective which puts the question of avoiding punishment in the foreground of attention, and which tends to create a Pharisaical complacency in the mere fact of having conformed to command or rule.
(c) _Probably the worst evil of this moral system is that it tends to deprive moral life of freedom and spontaneity_ and to reduce it (especially for the conscientious who take it seriously) to a more or less anxious and servile conformity to externally imposed rules.
Obedience as loyalty to principle is a good, but this scheme practically makes it the only good and conceives it not as loyalty to ideals, but as conformity to commands. Moral rules exist just as independent deliverances on their own account, and the right thing is merely to follow them. This puts the center of moral gravity outside the concrete processes of living. All systems which emphasize the letter more than the spirit, legal consequences more than vital motives, put the individual under the weight of external authority. They lead to the kind of conduct described by St. Paul as under the law, not in the spirit, with its constant attendant weight of anxiety, uncertain struggle, and impending doom.
=All Fixed Rules Have Same Tendencies.=--Many who strenuously object to all of these schemes of conduct, to everything which hardens it into forms by emphasizing external commands, authority and punishments and rewards, fail to see that such evils are logically connected with any acceptance of the finality of fixed rules. They hold certain bodies of people, religious officers, political or legal authorities, responsible for what they object to in the scheme; while they still cling to the idea that morality is an effort to apply to particular deeds and projects a certain number of absolute unchanging moral rules. They fail to see that, if this were its nature, those who attempt to provide the machinery which would render it practically workable deserve praise rather than blame. In fact, the notion of absolute rules or precepts cannot be made workable except through certain superior authorities who declare and enforce them. Said Locke: "It is no small power it gives one man over another to be the dictator of principles and teacher of unquestionable truths."
=II. Utilitarian View of General Rules.=--The utilitarians escape the difficulties inherent in the application to particular cases of a rule which has nothing to do with particular cases. Their principles for judging right and wrong in particular cases are themselves generalizations from particular observations of the effect of certain acts upon happiness and misery. But if we take happiness in the technical sense of Bentham (as meaning, that is, an aggregate of isolated pleasures) it is impossible for general rules to exist--there is nothing to generalize. If, however, we take happiness in its common-sense form, as welfare, a state of successful achievement, satisfactory realization of purpose, there can be no doubt of the existence of maxims and formulæ in which mankind has registered its experience. The following quotations from Mill bring out the essential points: "We think utility or happiness much too complex and indefinite an end to be sought except through the medium of various secondary ends concerning which there may be, and often is, agreement among persons who differ in their ultimate standard; and about which there does in fact prevail a much greater unanimity among thinking persons, than might be supposed from their diametrical divergence on the great questions of moral metaphysics" (_Essay on Bentham_).
These secondary ends or principles are such matters as regard for health, honesty, chastity, kindness, and the like. Concerning them he says in his _Utilitarianism_ (ch. ii.): "Mankind must by this time have acquired positive beliefs as to the effects of some actions on their happiness; and the beliefs which have thus come down are rules of morality for the multitude and for the philosopher until he has succeeded in finding better...To consider the rules of morality as improvable is one thing; to pass over the intermediate generalizations entirely and endeavor to test each individual action directly by the first principle, is another...Nobody argues that the act of navigation is not founded on astronomy, because sailors cannot wait to calculate the nautical almanac. Being rational creatures, they go to sea with it already calculated; and all rational creatures go out upon the sea of life with their minds made up on the common questions of right and wrong, as well as on many of the far more difficult questions of wise and foolish."
=Empirical Rules Run into Fixed Customs.=--It cannot be denied that Mill here states considerations which are of great value in aiding present judgments on right and wrong. The student of history will have little doubt that the rules of conduct which the intuitionalist takes as ultimate deliverances of a moral faculty are in truth generalizations of the sort indicated by Mill. But the truth brought out by Mill does not cover the ground which needs to be covered. Such rules at best cover customary elements; they are based upon past habits of life, past natural economic and political environments. And, as the student of customs knows, greater store is often set upon trivial, foolish, and even harmful things than upon serious ones--upon fashions of hair-dressing, ablutions, worship of idols. Coming nearer our own conditions, past customs certainly tolerate and sanction many practices, such as war, cruel business competition, economic exploitation of the weak, and absence of coöperative intelligent foresight, which the more sensitive consciences of the day will not approve.
=Hence are Unsatisfactory.=--Yet such things have been so identified with happiness that to forego them means misery, to alter them painful disturbance. To take the rules of the past with any literalness as criteria of judgment in the present, would be to return to the unprogressive morality of the régime of custom--to surrender the advance marked by reflective morality. Since Bentham and Mill were both utilitarians, it is worth noting that Bentham insisted upon the utilitarian standard just because he was so convinced of the unsatisfactory character of the kind of rules upon which Mill is dwelling. The "Nautical Almanac" has been _scientifically_ calculated; it is adapted rationally to its end; but the rules which sum up custom are a confused mixture of class interest, irrational sentiment, authoritative pronunciamento, and genuine consideration of welfare.
=Empirical Rules Also Differ Widely.=--The fact is, moreover, that it is only when the "intermediate generalizations" are taken vaguely and abstractly that there is as much agreement as Mill claims. All educated and virtuous persons in the same country practically agree upon the rules of justice, benevolence, and regard for life, so long as they are taken in such a vague way that they mean anything in general and nothing in particular. Every one is in favor of justice in the abstract; but existing political and economic discussions regarding tariff, sumptuary laws, monetary standards, trades unions, trusts, the relation of capital and labor, the regulation or ownership of public utilities, the nationalization of land and industry, show that large bodies of intelligent and equally well-disposed people are quite capable of finding that the principle of justice requires exactly opposite things.
Custom still forms the background of all moral life, nor can we imagine a state of affairs in which it should not. Customs are not external to individuals' courses of action; they are embodied in the habits and purposes of individuals; in the words of Grote (quoted above, p. 173), they "reign under the appearance of habitual, _self-suggested_ tendencies." Laws, formulated and unformulated, social conventions, rules of manners, the general expectations of public opinion, are all of them sources of instruction regarding conduct. Without them the individual would be practically helpless in determining the right courses of action in the various situations in which he finds himself.
Through them he has provided himself in advance with a list of questions, an organized series of points-of-view, by which to approach and estimate each state of affairs requiring action. Most of the moral judgments of every individual are framed in this way.
=For Customs Conflict.=--If social customs, or individual habits, never conflicted with one another, this sort of guidance would suffice for the determination of right and wrong. But reflection is necessitated because opposite habits set up incompatible ends, forms of happiness between which choice has to be made. Hence the need of _principles in judging_.
Principles of judgment cannot simply reinstate past rules of behavior, for the simple reason that as long as these rules suffice there is no reflection and no demand for principles. Good and evil, right and wrong, are embodied in the injunctions and prohibitions of customs and institutions and are not thought about.
=Moral Import of Principles is Intellectual, Not Imperative.=--This brings us to the essential point in the consideration of the value of general principles. _Rules are practical; they are habitual ways of doing things. But principles are intellectual; they are useful methods of judging things._ The fundamental error of the intuitionalist and of the utilitarian (represented in the quotation from Mill) is that they are on the lookout for rules which will of themselves tell agents just what course of action to pursue; _whereas the object of moral principles is to supply standpoints and methods which will enable the individual to make for himself an analysis of the elements of good and evil in the particular situation in which he finds himself_. No genuine moral principle prescribes a specific course of action; rules[165] like cooking recipes, may tell just what to do and how to do it. A moral principle, such as that of chastity, of justice, of the golden rule, gives the agent a basis for looking at and examining a particular question that comes up. It holds before him certain possible aspects of the act; it warns him against taking a short or partial view of the act.
It economizes his thinking by supplying him with the main heads by reference to which to consider the bearings of his desires and purposes; it guides him in his thinking by suggesting to him the important considerations for which he should be on the lookout.
=Golden Rule as a Tool of Analysis.=--A moral principle, then, is not a command to act or forbear acting in a given way: _it is a tool for analyzing a special situation_, the right or wrong being determined by the situation in its entirety, and not by the rule as such. We sometimes hear it stated, for example, that the universal adoption of the Golden Rule would at once settle all industrial disputes and difficulties. But supposing that the principle were accepted in good faith by everybody; it would not at once tell everybody just what to do in all the complexities of his relations to others. When individuals are still uncertain of what their real good may be, it does not finally decide matters to tell them to regard the good of others as they would their own. Nor does it mean that whatever in detail we want for ourselves we should strive to give to others. Because I am fond of classical music it does not follow that I should thrust as much of it as possible upon my neighbors. But the "Golden Rule" does furnish us a _point of view from which to consider acts_; it suggests the necessity of considering how our acts affect the interests of others as well as our own; it tends to prevent partiality of regard; it warns against setting an undue estimate upon a particular consequence of pain or pleasure, simply because it happens to affect us. In short, the Golden Rule does not issue special orders or commands; but it does simplify judgment of the situations requiring intelligent deliberation.
=Sympathy as Actuating Principle of a Reasonable Judgment.=--We have had repeated occasion (as in the discussion of intent and motive, of intuition and deliberate calculation) to see how artificial is the separation of emotion and thought from one another. As the only effective thought is one fused by emotion into a dominant interest, so the only truly general, the reasonable as distinct from the merely shrewd or clever thought, is the _generous_ thought. Sympathy widens our interest in consequences and leads us to take into account such results as affect the welfare of others; it aids us to count and weigh these consequences as counting for as much as those which touch our own honor, purse, or power. To put ourselves in the place of another, to see from the standpoint of his purposes and values, to humble our estimate of our own claims and pretensions to the level they would assume in the eyes of a sympathetic and impartial observer, is the surest way to attain universality and objectivity of moral knowledge. Sympathy, in short, is the general principle of moral knowledge, not because its commands take precedence of others (which they do not necessarily), but because it furnishes the most reliable and efficacious _intellectual_ standpoint.
It supplies the tool, _par excellence_, for analyzing and resolving complex cases. As was said in our last chapter, it is the _fusion_ of the sympathetic impulses with others that is needed; what we now add is that in this fusion, sympathy supplies the _pou sto_ for an effective, broad, and objective survey of desires, projects, resolves, and deeds.
It translates the formal and empty reason of Kant out of its abstract and theoretic character, just as it carries the cold calculations of utilitarianism into recognition of the common good.
LITERATURE For criticisms of Kant's view of reason, see Caird, _Philosophy of Kant_, Vol. II., Book II., ch. ii.; Paulsen, _System of Ethics_, pp.
For intuitionalism, see Calderwood, _Handbook of Moral Philosophy_; Maurice, _Conscience_; Whewell, _The Elements of Morality_; Martineau, _Types of Ethical Theory_, Vol. II., pp. 96-115; Mezes, _Ethics_, ch.
iii.; Sidgwick, _Methods of Ethics_, Book I., chs. viii.-ix., and Book III. entire, but especially ch. i.; _History of Ethics_, 170-204, and 224-236, and _Lectures on Ethics of Green, Spencer, and Martineau_, 361-374.
For the moral sense theory, see Sidgwick, _History of Ethics_, p. 189; Shaftesbury, _Characteristics_; Hutcheson, _System of Moral Philosophy_.
For casuistry, see references in Rand's _Bibliography_, Vol. III., Part II., p. 880.
For the variability of moral rules, see Locke, _Essay on the Human Understanding_, Book I.; Bain, _Moral Science_, Part I., ch. iii.; Spencer, _Principles of Ethics_, Vol. I., Part II.; Williams, _Review of Evolutional Ethics_, pp. 423-465; Bowne, _Principles of Ethics_, ch. v.; Schurman, _The Ethical Import of Darwinism_; the writings of Westermarck and Hobhouse elsewhere referred to, and Darwin, _Descent of Man_, Part I., chs. iv.-v.
For the nature of moral judgment and the function of reason in conduct, see Aristotle, Book III., chs. ii.-iii., and Book VI.; Ladd, _Philosophy of Conduct_, ch. vii.; Sharp, _Essay on Analysis of the Moral Judgment_, in Studies in Philosophy and Psychology (Garman Commemorative Volume); Santayana, _Life of Reason_, Vol. I., chs. x.-xii.; Bryant, _Studies in Character_, Part II., chs. iv.-v.
For the social character of conscience, see Cooley, _Human Nature and the Social Order_, ch. x.
For sympathy and conscience, see Adam Smith, _Theory of Moral Sentiments_, especially Part III., chs. i. and iv., and Part IV., chs.
FOOTNOTES: [158] "Any one can be angry: that is quite easy. Any one can give money away or spend it. But to do these things to the right person, to the right amount, at the right time, with the right aim and in the right manner--this is not what any one can easily do."--ARISTOTLE, _Ethics_, Book II., ch. ix.
[159] Compare the sentence quoted on p. 268 from Hazlitt.
[160] This means Duty. This phase will be discussed in the next chapter.
[161] _Kant's Theory of Ethics_, trans. by Abbott, pp. 47-51.
[162] In last analysis Kant is trying to derive moral enlightenment from the most abstract principle of formal logic, the principle of Identity, that A is A!
[163] A student in an ethics class once made this remark: "Conscience is infallible, but we should not always follow it. Sometimes we should use our reason."
[164] Compare Locke, _Essay on the Human Understanding_, Book I., ch.
iii.
[165] Of course, the word "rule" is often used to designate a principle--as in the case of the phrase "golden-rule." We are speaking not of the words, but of their underlying ideas.
CHAPTER XVII THE PLACE OF DUTY IN THE MORAL LIFE: SUBJECTION TO AUTHORITY =Conflict of Ends as Attractive and as Reasonable.=--The previous discussion has brought out the contrast between a Good or Satisfaction which is such _directly_, immediately, by appealing attractively to desire; and one which is such indirectly, through considerations which reflection brings up. As we have seen, the latter must, if entertained at all, arouse some direct emotional response, must be felt to be in some way satisfactory. But the _way_ may be quite unlike that of the end which attracts and holds a man irrespective of the principle brought to light by reflection. The one may be intense, vivid, absorbing, passing at once into overt action, unless checked by a contrary reason. The good whose claim to be good depends mainly on projection of remote considerations, may be theoretically recognized and yet the direct appeal to the particular agent at the particular time be feeble and pallid. The "law of the mind" may assert itself less urgently than the "law of the members" which wars against it.
=Two Senses of Term Duty.=--This contrast gives rise to the fact of Duty. On one side is the rightful supremacy of the reasonable but remote good; on the other side is the aversion of those springs to action which are immediately most urgent. Between them exists the necessity of securing for the reasonable good efficacy in operation; or the necessity of redirecting the play of naturally dominant desires. Duty is also used, to be sure, in a looser and more external sense. To identify the dutiful with the right apart from conflict, to say that a man did his duty, may mean that he did right, irrespective of the prior state of his inclinations. It frequently happens that the wider and larger good which is developed through reflective memory and foresight is welcomed, is directly appreciated as good, since it is thoroughly attractive. Without stress and strain, without struggle, it just displaces the object which unreflective impulse had suggested. It is the fit and proper, the only sensible and wise thing, under the circumstances. The man does his duty, but is glad to do it, and would be troubled by the thought of another line of action. So far as calling the act "duty" brings in any new meaning, it means that the right act is one which is found to meet the demands, the necessities, of the situation in which it takes place. The Romans thus spoke of duties as _offices_, the performance of those functions which are appropriate to the status which every person occupies because of his social relations.
=Conscious Conflict.=--But there are other cases in which the _right_ end is distinctly apprehended by the person as standing in opposition to his natural inclinations, as a principle or law which _ought_ to be followed, but which _can_ be followed only by constraining the inclinations, by snubbing and coercing them. This state of affairs is well represented by the following quotation from Matthew Arnold, if we take it as merely describing the facts, not as implying a theory as to their explanation: "All experience with conduct brings us at last to the fact of two selves, or instincts, or forces--name them, however we may and however we may suppose them to have arisen--contending for the mastery over men: one, a movement of first impulse and more involuntary, leading us to gratify any inclination that may solicit us and called generally a movement of man's ordinary or passing self, of sense, appetite, desire; the other a movement of reflection and more voluntary, leading us to submit inclination to some rule, and called generally a movement of man's higher or enduring self, of reason, spirit, will."[166] We shall (I.) present what we consider the true account of this situation of conflict in which the sense of duty is found; (II.) turn to explanations which are one-sided, taking up (1) the intuitive, (2) the utilitarian theory; and finally (III.) return with the results of this criticism to a restatement of our own theory.
§ 1. THE SUBJECTION OF DESIRE TO LAW Ordinary language sets before us some main facts: duty suggests what is due, a debt to be paid; ought is connected with owe; obligation implies being bound to something--as we speak of "bounden duty." We speak naturally of "meeting obligations"; of duties being "imposed," "laid upon" one. The person who is habitually careless about his duties is "unruly" or "lawless"; one who evades or refuses them is "unprincipled."
These ideas suggest there is something required, exacted, having the sanction of law, or a regular and regulative principle; and imply natural aversion to the requirements exacted, a preference for something else. Hence duty as a conscious factor means constraint of inclination; an unwillingness or reluctance which _should_ be overcome but which it is difficult to surmount, requiring an effort which only adequate recognition of the rightful supremacy of the dutiful end will enable one to put forth. Thus we speak of interest conflicting with principle, and desire with duty. While they are inevitably bound together, it will be convenient to discuss separately (1) Inclination and impulse as averse to duty, and (2) Duty as having authority, as expressing law.
=1. Inclination Averse to Duty.=--Directly and indirectly, all desires root in certain fundamental organic wants and appetites. Conduct, behavior, implies a living organism. If this organism were not equipped with an intense instinctive tendency to keep itself going, to sustain itself, it would soon cease to be amid the menaces, difficulties, rebuffs, and failures of life. Life means appetites, like hunger, thirst, sex; instincts like anger, fear, and hope, which are almost imperious in their struggles for satisfaction. They do not arise from reflection, but antedate it; their existence does not depend upon consideration of consequences, but their existence it is which tends to call out reflection. Their very presence in a healthy organism means a certain reservoir of energy which overflows almost spontaneously. They are impulsive. Such tendencies, then, constitute an essential and fundamental part of the capacities of a person; their realization is involved in one's happiness. In all this there is nothing abnormal nor immoral. But a human being is something more than a mere demand for the satisfaction of instincts of food, sex, and protection. If we admit (as the theory of organic evolution requires) that all other desires and purposes are _ultimately_ derived from these tendencies of the organism, still it is true that the refined and highly developed forms exist side by side with crude, organic forms, and that the simultaneous satisfaction of the two types, just as they stand, is impossible.
=Organic and Reflectively Formed Tendencies Conflict.=--Even if it be true, as it may well be, that the desires and purposes connected with property were developed out of instincts having to do with food for self