CHAPTER X 



MR. LESLIE STEPHEN'S "SCIENCE OF ETHICS" 



Stephen a utilitarian Who came to believe in evolution as a scientific 

 fact Begins here with facts ; ethical judgments exist Organisms 

 seek maximum efficiency If social " tissue " is " organic " Then 

 ethical laws may be the conditions of maximum social efficiency 

 (Nature cares for individuals) Nature says, " Be strong ! " Ethics 

 says, " Society, be strong ! " The ethical is the typical society, and 

 therefore ethical judgments are binding But the type is actual, not 

 ideal ! Society is a complex whole, changing while its parts are un- 

 changed Criticism Sanction for individual goodness lies in sym- 

 pathy merely Sometimes we are too good for our own interests ! 

 Compared with Comte, lacks authority With Spencer, calls 

 " health " the ideal, and ridicules " balance " With Darwin, not 

 struggle of individual with individual, but of individual with society 



With Utilitarianism; discourages the calculation of consequences 



Most of his positions may be accepted in a deeper sense 



MR. STEPHEN makes his intellectual history very 

 plain in the preface to the Science of Ethics. He 

 started in the life of thought as a utilitarian, under 

 the strong influence of J. S. Mill ; and he never came 

 to regard the utilitarian position as discredited. But, 

 in course of time, impressed partly by Darwin's theory, 

 partly by Spencer's writings, he began to crave a re- 

 statement of ethics. This was in no sense a conces- 

 sion to intuitionalism. Spencer's "reconciliation of 

 intuitionalism with empiricism " is indeed accepted by 

 Mr. Stephen, as appears from his other writings ; but, 



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