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169 



EVOLUTION ETHICS. 



'[oral Oraer and Proi^rcss : an Analysis of Ethical Con- 

 ceptions. By S. Alexander. " English and Foreign 

 . Philosophical Library." (London: Triibner, 1889.) 

 " T T will be found that moral ideals move by a process 

 -L which, allowing for differences, repeats the law by 

 which natural species develop. . . . The growth of a new 

 ideal is analogous to the growth of a new species in the 

 organic world. According to the generally accepted view, 

 a new species is produced through giving rise to varia- 

 tions which struggle with one another and with the parent 

 species. . . . The good ideal has been created by a 

 struggle of ideals in which it has predominated. Evil is 

 simply that which has been rejected and defeated in the 

 struggle with the good." These sentences contain the 

 key-note of Mr. Alexander's able and valuable work — a 

 work which will be read with interest by students of ethics 

 of whatever school. Based upon a dissertation, for which 

 Mr. Alexander obtained the Green Moral Philosophy 

 Prize at Oxford in 1 887, written by one who has carefully 

 studied and grasped the principles set forth by Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer and Mr. Leslie Stephen, this work is in 

 some sense the offspring of the fertile union of the "Prole- 

 gomena " and the " Science of Ethics." Or, as he himself 

 expresses it, coming to the ideas borrowed from biology 

 and the theory of evolution, which are prevalent in modern 

 ethics, with a training derived from Aristotle and Hegel, 

 Mr. Alexander has found " not antagonism, but, on the 

 whole, fulfilment." 



Morality being a matter of conduct and the outcome of 

 character, the first book of the three into which Mr. 

 Alexander's work is divided deals with conduct and 

 character, which he regards as the same thing facing 

 different ways. Think of a man's conduct in relation to 

 the mental conditions from which it proceeds, and you 

 think of his character: think of his character as it pro- 

 duces results beyond these sentiments themselves, and 

 you have conduct. Following in the footsteps of Prof 

 Max Miiller, who identifies language with thought, Mr. 

 Alexander thus identifies conduct with character. As 

 language is the expression of thought, so is conduct the 

 expression of character. But just as thought is not co- 

 extensive with the psychological field, so is conduct not 

 co-extensive with the field of action. Conduct is willed 

 action : it implies volition. And Mr. Alexander goes so 

 far as to deny to the brutes any share in conduct, any 

 participation with us in volition. Character, too, as 

 identical with conduct, or merely another aspect thereof, 

 implies volition. Non-volitional activities are not the 

 outcome of character ; they merely arise out of the dis- 

 position or temperament of the agent. Animals have 

 dispositions, but no character. 



What, then, is the nature of that volition which distin- 

 guishes character and makes morality possible .'' It is 

 this: that "when a man wills he does not merely per- 

 form an act which issues in a certain end, but has before 

 him the idea of the end, or is conscious of his object, or, 

 in homely language, knows what he is doing, though he 

 need not reflect on what he is doing." The presence of 

 Vol. XL.— No. 1025. 



the idea then, as such, distinguishes volition (human) from 

 mere impulse (animal). But the presence of the idea 

 also distinguishes desire : whence desire would also seem 

 to be restricted to man. Desire consists in the feeling of 

 tension, which may be described as a sense of disparity 

 between the ideal object and the actual state of the agent. 

 The act of volition is the passage from the actual state 

 to the ideal state : it is the conscious realization of the 

 ideal. 



Moral action, then, in Mr. Alexander's system being 

 willed action, we naturally turn to see what his position 

 is with regard to the free-will controversy, and we find 

 him occupying the standpoint of determinism. It would 

 have been well, perhaps, to state this earlier than in the 

 last chapter but one of the work. But, though there is 

 no index, his table of contents contains a full and clear 

 conspectus of the argument, and a little trouble enables . 

 the reader to turn to this or other points on which he may 

 desire information in the course of his perusal. The idea 

 of a free will in the sense of an undetermined will is, Mr. 

 Alexander believes, "a sheer delusion." Though invented 

 to save responsibility, free will, he says, renders it inex- 

 plicable. A will independent of motives could never be 

 responsible because it would not be called to account. 

 Mr. Alexander connects responsibility and punishment. 

 When we call a bad man responsible, we mean that the 

 good man holds him to be justly punished. " His re- 

 sponsibility lies in a feeling not on his own part, but on 

 the part of the good, just as the badness of his action 

 consists in the good man's disapprobation." 



We must leave the upholders of the doctrine of free 

 will to pick serious holes in Mr. Alexander's argument. 

 But accepting with him the determinist position, we think 

 there are certain points which he might have made 

 clearer. He says, in effect, that a man is responsible for 

 such acts as are the outcome of his character (willed acts), 

 but not for such as are the outcome of his disposition 

 (impulsive acts). For these but not for those he is justly 

 punishable. It is idle, he says, to praise a feeling [or 

 action] which cannot be commanded : what is praised is 

 its indulgence or its cultivation. But if both are inexorably 

 determined, why is the one more praiseworthy than the 

 other.? Why is it just to punish one set of actions and 

 not the other? We punish the dog for certain of his 

 actions, though in Mr. Alexander's view he cannot be 

 responsible for them. Do we not often punish, and that 

 wisely, men for similar acts for which Mr. Alexander 

 would not hold them responsible .'' The distinction 

 between willed acts and impulsive acts, as defined by 

 Mr. Alexander, is a valid distinction in psychology. But 

 does not determinism break down this distinction (or at 

 least make it somewhat arbitrary) when we come to re- 

 sponsibility ? Does Mr. Alexander mean that it is 

 practically convenient to hold men responsible for the 

 (determined) acts of will : or does he consider the 

 psychological distinction a justification for the moral 

 distinction ? Undoubtedly, as it seems to us, the latter; 

 for he contends that the sphere of morality is the sphere 

 of willed action. The evil that a man does as the im- 

 pulsive outcome of his disposition he regards as a subject 

 for pity, but not for moral aversion. His psychological 

 basis is clear ; but we think he might have more explicitly- 

 reconciled it with his determinism. 



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