The moral life : a study in genetic ethics / by Arthur Ernest Davies.

  • Davies, Arthur Ernest
Date:
1909
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The moral life : a study in genetic ethics / by Arthur Ernest Davies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    hility of moral choice/ the willing and the choosing are more social than individual, and the character which they display is a common possession rather than a private virtue. Indeed, as we have seen reason to believe, the individual is a particular differ- entiation of the social group which displays, in unique ways, all the characteristic qualities of feeling and will and thought which belong to the parent organization. Wundt doubtless states the truth when he says: “We know man only as a social being, gov- erned at once by an individual will and by the will of the whole; and there is no evidence to show that the latter had its origin in the former. On the contrary, the relative independence of the indi- vidual will is the result of a later evolution. As the child becomes conscious of its own will by a gradual process, and slowly develops its own personality out of an environment which at first it scarcely distinguishes from itself, so in the state of nature it is the common feeling, thought and will that dominate.”^ This truth has important what is it in fact, and essentially, in spite of its many degrees of intensity, so to say, and its different forms of manifestation? This is the primary ethical question.”—Ladd, Philosophy of Conduct, p. 144. ‘ By moral choice we mean the choice of that on account of which we put forth effort. The following from the ‘Gorgias,’ 467, may serve as an illustration, and, at the same time, as an indication of the Platonic position: Socrates: Do men appear to you to will that which they do, or do they will that further object for the sake of which they do that which they do;—for example, when they take medicine at the bidding of a physician, do they will the drinking of the medicine, or the health for the sake of which they drink? Polus: Clearly the health. Socrates: And when men go on a voyage .... they will to have the wealth for the sake of which they go on a voyage. Polus: Certainly. Socrates: And is it not universally true ? If a man does something for the sake of something else, he wills not that which he does, but that for the sake of which he does it. ’ The Principles of Morality, pp. 26, 27. Italics ours.