The sense of obligation is the third of those features of our moral and religious experience that have suggested the idea of its source in some superhuman spiritual reality. The peculiarities of this experience may again be noted. What we feel we “ought” to do there seems always to be some desire to do, but commonly it is not what we desire most to do; and, whether or not the opposing desires win out in action, we feel that it does not affect the question of what we ought to do. The “ought” thus represents a desire but is independ ent of the strength of desire. It is commonly altruistic in its directional tendency but not necessarily so. Yet reflectiorl upon it has brought about a very widespread endorsement of the principle of doing the greatest possible good for all concerned, with equal consideration for all. In the details of its operation it reflects strongly the current moral tradition and the personal prejudices and interests of the individual, though its own verdict is that these are really extraneous influences by which the moial judgment “ought” not to be affected. It thus points to a unique order of activities, actual or ideal, which it marks as the way things ought to be or ought to be done. It allows for differences of obligation relative to differences within the individual and in the external circumstances of each case, but assumes a universality in the nature of the ought in that it asserts that in so far as the relevant features of the total situation are the same for each person [ p. 270 ] concerned it contains the same obligations for each of them.
(a) Obligation as Reasonable Self-Interest. — This then being the general character of the notion of obligation, an empirical philosophy must look for its source in experience. From the beginnings of empiricism we find a strong tendency to look for the roots of obligation in reasonable self-interest. Among recent writers this point of view is ably represented by F. C. Sharp and W. T. Stace.
In defining the moral ideal Professor Sharp emphasizes the requirements of impartiality. The “authority” of this ideal, he says, consists in its “reasonableness.” From a wide variety of examples of” unreasonable” conduct he concludes that such conduct consists essentially in a person’s acting “in defiance of the demands of an objective valuation of his own interests.” If we accept this definition we should conclude that the contradictory term “reasonable conduct” would describe conduct that is in accord with an objective valuation of one’s own interests. But Sharp draws a different, and quite unwarranted, conclusion: “This analysis of the unreasonable reveals the nature of the reasonable . . . those actions are reasonable which would flow from a complete knowledge and perfect realization of the sum total of their consequences,” so that such knowledge, applied consistently throughout, “would result in the willing subordination of self to the claims of that majestic whole of which we each form a part.” [1] This argument shows that, when only the individual’s own interests are at stake, reasonableness consists in the selection of what, on the whole and in the long run, constitutes the greatest good. It then assumes that the same principle will hold when the interests of many people are involved. But such an assumption obviously begs the whole question.
This fallacy, however, would never have deceived anyone [ p. 271 ] were it not that, to all morally sensitive people, it does seem perfectly reasonable that we should consider the welfare of others equally with our own. Sharp is on sounder ground when, in an earlier chapter, he states that “egoism … is no more primitive in the child’s mind than is altruism.” [2] But this is close to saying that what is really primitive is the disinterested will. And, as we have constantly urged, this is the reason why, to the reflective moral consciousness, it seems increasingly reasonable and right to pursue without favor the good of all. But to say that will is primitively disinterested means that it is not primarily a response to the needs of the organism, that it is not merely an organic adjustment in its origin and a habit in its developed form. It is to recognize, therefore, the only alternative, that will is responsive to the objective value qualities that its world presents to it. Thus its early apparent egoism, in the child and in the animal, is due merely to the fact that its early feeling of values is limited to those associated with the organism immediately concerned, and its later egoism is due merely to the survival and extension of early habits thus formed.
Without the recognition of this priority of the disinterested will to the reactions and needs of the organism every attempt to explain the sense of obligation breaks down. Professor Stace’s more confident exposition from the standpoint of egoism is, for example, no more successful than the rather hesitant egoism of Professor Sharp. Stace’s view is not that all our motives are egoistic. He finds in “disinterested altruism” one of the most important sources of morality.[3] It is the notion of obligation, he feels, that has to be put upon an egoistic basis. He can find no meaning in the notion of a categorical obligation, except in the sense that these notions have [ p. 272 ] a powerful effect upon people’s minds and behavior.[4] Why they should do so is left a mystery. But Stace cannot find any fact that such statements of obligation describe. Hypothetical moral judgments however, he points out, may describe a factual connection and may therefore be true or false; i.e., they are meaningful. In such judgments, “This ought to be done” means simply, “If certain needs or desires are to be fulfilled then this ought to be done.” Thus morality is regarded as relative to the needs of human nature, and a universal or objective morality has to be shown to be “relative to the universal needs of human nature.” [5]
From an empirical examination of recognized human duties and of concepts of the ends of moral action, Stace concludes that the goal of moral action is happiness and that human duties may be summed up in the command, “You ought to be unselfish.” The only empirical basis he can find for this conclusion is in the contention that this is the only way for a person to attain his own happiness.[6] In support of this contention he points first to the social nature of man, which makes him dependent in so many ways upon the presence and cooperation of his fellows; and, second, to man’s “capacity for being made happy in some degree by the bare fact of the happiness of other persons.” [7] These two sources of satisfaction, it is claimed, yield values so high in the scale ‘‘ that between them they are capable of yielding more happiness than all the rest of our satisfactions put together,” and “supreme happiness” is attainable only “by reaching up to, and practically carrying out, the highest imaginable moral ideals.” Thus the conclusion is reached;” You ought to be moral because without morality you cannot attain . . . that high happiness, which you yourself desire.” [8]
[ p. 873 ]
Now, as a general rule, it seems to me profoundly true that a really rational unselfishness, even involving considerable self-sacrifice, makes for the happiness of the unselfish person. In certain extreme cases however, where the right and unselfish thing has been done at great cost and has met only misunderstanding and ingratitude, the conclusion hardly seems justified. But whether or not it is the case that to be just and unselfish will always make us happier, it seems to me quite obvious that this is not the reason why we feel that we ought to be just and unselfish. Is it not the essence of the moral situation that we feel that there are certain ways we ought to behave toward our fellows, whether we want to or not, and whether or not it will make us any happier? If a man could prove with certainty that to pay his debts would make him unhappy, that would not prove that he ought not to pay them. The essence of morality is in the recognition that there are certain obligations we owe to our fellows, not in a canny calculation as to how to get the most out of life for ourselves. We may cherish a high faith that virtue is its own reward, but it is not the fact of its great rewards that makes a certain line of conduct a virtue.
Thus, plainly, the root of our sense of obligation does not lie in the promise of happiness attached to the doing of our duty. But does this rejection of the effort to base morality on the desire for our own happiness leave the moral imperative hanging in empty air — an ought-to-do without a reason to be found for it? If the “ought” had no relation to any fact it would be strange that the notion should have the deep influence upon people’s minds that Stace rightly admits it possesses. When we turn to our previous analysis, however, we find the reason for the “ought,” and the reason why it so strongly influences people even when they cannot clearly explain what they mean by it. It expresses a more or less clear sense of the proper order of our purposive activity that is [ p. 274 ] rooted in the actual order of the teleological structure of our own personalities.[9]
In the actual order of the purposive structure of the organism, for example, the will to eat is instrumental to the will to live. If we pursue the will to eat in circumstances which are detrimental to the more fundamental will to live, then, upon reflection, we see that this relation is wrong; even without reflection we may vaguely feel that there is something wrong without being able clearly to isolate the functional disorder and say what it is. Similarly, when we set the pursuit of our own lesser good before the greater good of the community, we see, more or less clearly, that there is something wrong about this choice. The disinterested will to the realization of the greatest possible good may be almost swamped by the subsidiary desires to realize certain particular goods in our own persons. But the more we reflect upon and analyze our own desires, the more the conviction grows that the (at the time weaker) disinterested desire for the general good was the one to which the other desires “ought” to have been subservient. The values attached to this desire seem “higher,” its satisfaction” deeper there is an obligation attaching to it; it is not so strong but it ought to be allowed the primacy.
[ p. 275 ]
This inescapable feeling that the disinterested will ought to be recognized as having primary claim is, if our analysis is correct, simply due to the fact that it really is the primary feature of that system of purposive tendencies which constitutes the personality. The “ought” describes a fact, a fact which is also a norm, the normal functional order of the system of conative tendencies, or forms of will, that constitute our human nature. And it is for this reason that, when we reflect calmly and deeply upon what we ought to do, we feel that the way of our highest obligation is also, in general if not always, the way of our truest welfare and deepest happiness.
Thus the very reasons advanced in support of an egoistic interpretation of obligation turn out, upon examination, to point to the primacy of the disinterested will and the merely instrumental position of the system of purposive tendencies that constitutes the individual organism. The good of the individual finds its place as a real part, but only a part, of a larger good in course of realization. And the individual will finds itself as a necessary organic part, but only a part, of a larger system of will directed toward the larger goal.
(b) Obligation as Social Pressure. — The theory that conscience is due simply to the acceptance, under various forms of social pressure, of the traditional moral ideas of the community or of some group within it has always found many supporters. The fact that individuals do tend thus to derive their moral ideas is, of course, quite obvious; we similarly derive most of our ideas on every other subject, and comparatively few people give much critical overhauling to the traditional beliefs in morals, politics, science or any other field. But this fact, and the resulting differences of opinion among different groups, do not prove that all these bodies of belief are nothing but beliefs accepted under social pressure, that they are not all more or less accurately grounded in experience and capable of being tested by experience. Empiricists [ p. 276 ] in ethics are usually quite emphatic in insisting that there are objective empirical criteria whereby we can decide what is good. Yet many of them assert that the notion of an obligation upon the individual to conform his conduct to the pursuit of the good has no other basis than the natural and social sanctions. We shall briefly examine this interpretation as developed by Dewey, Moritz Schlick (representing the recent and active school of logical positivism) , and Westermarck.
Dewey. — “The stuff of belief,” says Professor Dewey, “comes to us from others, by education, tradition and the suggestion of the environment.” This is so with science and with conscience. “When a child acts those about him react,” showing approval and disapproval.
We foreknow how others will act, and the foreknowledge is the beginning of judgment passed on action, . . . there is conscience. An assembly is formed within our breast which discusses and appraises proposed and performed acts. The community without becomes a forum within. . . . Moral judgment and moral responsibility are the work wrought in us by the social environment.[10]
Right is only an abstract name for the multitude of concrete demands in action which others impress upon us, and of which we are obliged, if we would live, to take some account. Its authority is the exigency of their demands, the efficacy of their insistencies. . . . Accordingly failure to recognize the authority of right means defect in effective apprehension of the realities of human association . . . indicates a defect in education.[11]
This, if it were true, would reduce the whole notion of right and wrong, of moral obligation, to the mere blind force of custom. Yet, sandwiched in the midst of the argument, there is a grudging half-admission that gives the whole case away:
There may be good ground for the contention that in theory the idea of the right is subordinate to that of the good, being a state [ p. 277 ] ment of the course proper to attain good. But in fact it signifies the totality of the social pressures exercised upon us to induce us to think and desire in certain ways.[12]
It is surely a very superficial impression from the facts which ignores the inner meaning given to the idea by every thoughtful person who admits an obligation. A little questioning of any intelligent person, be he savage or scientist, as to why he recognizes a certain traditional custom, institution, law or principle as right and obligatory will bring forth the defense that it is good for the individual or for society. That which society approves is accepted as an obligation simply because it is assumed that society has approved it as good because it is good. When a moral critic attacks any accepted law or principle he does so by proceeding to argue that it is not good. Both sides agree that the only way to show that anything is obligatory is to show that it is good — for society if not for the individual. Even Kant felt this necessity. And when appeal is made to authority it is to an authority recognized as knowing what is good.
Thus at every level of consideration the notion of obligation is connected with that of the good and derived from it.[13] Dewey himself cannot escape the connection. With a delightful inconsistency he follows up his dismissal of the notions of right and obligation as mere names for social pressures by telling us what our obligations are and grounding his contention, not on facts of social pressure, but on his own insight into what is good. All morals, he has claimed, are social. And then he adds:
But there are enormous differences of better and worse in the quality of what is social. Ideal morals begin with the perception of these differences. . . . We have at last reached a point where [ p. 278 ] social conditions create a mind capable of scientific outlook and inquiry. To foster and develop this spirit is the social obligation of the present because it is its urgent need.[14]
Thus Dewey himself feels an obligation and wants us to feel it. It does not arise from social pressures, but from the “perception” of qualitative differences of good and evil in the social order and in the character of different minds, and from the further recognition that the individual ought to do those things which meet the social need. Dewey’s own moral sense is obviously rooted in the disinterested will to the general good; but he does not do justice to the man in the street and the man in the jungle when he suggests that their sense of obligation is not also rooted in some “perception” of “differences of better and worse in the quality of what is social” — a perception which, in their case as in ours, rests ultimately on the primacy of the disinterested will.
Moritz Schlick. — In the work of Moritz Schlick we have a much more careful statement of essentially the same point of view, though linked with a hedonism which Dewey rejects. “Those dispositions are called good,” Schlick finds, “which human society believes are most advantageous to its general welfare.”[15] Or again: “The word ‘ good ’ has a moral sense when (1) it refers to human decisions, and (2) expresses an approbation by human society.” And approval means " desired by a large majority of those persons with whom the individual comes into contact through word or deed.”[16]
The conscience is formed by external suggestion, whose whisperings resound in the mind as through a powerful trumpet.[17]
The moral demands are established by society only because the fulfillment of these demands appears to be useful to it. . . . The [ p. 279 ] material meaning of the word " moral” exhausts itself in denoting what, according to the prevailing opinion in society, is advantageous (its formal meaning consists in being demanded by society) .[18] The philosopher could, for his purposes, define as moral that behaviour by means of which an individual furthered his capacity for happiness, and could designate the precepts of society as “truly” moral if this criterion fitted them.[19]
“I ought to do something” never means anything but “Someone wants me to do it.” And in fact the desire of another, directed upon me, is described as an ought only when that person is able to add pressure to his desire and thus to reward fulfillment and to punish neglect, or at least to point out the natural consequences of observance or neglect. . . . When the command of another person confronts me under [these] conditions …» then definite conscious processes take place in me, which represent just that experience which in everyday life we call “ought.” It is complex, yet not so difficult to analyze. The decisive thing is the consciousness of “compulsion,” which consists of the fact that a persistent idea is established by the one who commands, and is equipped by means of his sanctions with feeling tones so strong that they affect adversely the pleasure components of all other ideas, and (in the case of obedience) suppress them.[20]
The utter inadequacy of this exposition of the empirical roots of our sense of obligation, and of the notion of a moral good, may perhaps be sufficiently shown by its application to the problem of international morality. The notion of moral obligation of nation to nation has been of slow growth, but it certainly is growing and its expansion is the greatest moral need of today. Its growth is due to the logical extension to the international sphere of moral principles already recognized between individuals. If it is wrong for me to rob my neighbor and right for me to protect him from a robber, then [ p. 280 ] it is wrong for my nation to rob a neighbor nation and right to offer protection.
But if we accept Schlick’s interpretation of what constitutes morality and obligation then this argument is based on a false premise. It assumes that essentially the same relevant moral relations hold between the populations of one country and another as between individuals within the one country. But, for Schlick, the act that would have the best result on the whole is not thereby to be accounted morally good or obligatory. Morality and obligation enter in only when it is approved by society as useful and society is able to exert such compulsion as to make it unpleasant to go against its will. This means that, in pre-world war days, when international society expressed no disapproval of the exploitation of Asia and Africa and the annexation of small countries by their larger neighbors, there was nothing really wrong about such actions. And even today, when world opinion disapproves such things, there is no moral obligation upon any country not to do them, for world society has not yet developed the means for making it really unpleasant for the aggressive and exploiting nation so long as it attacks only weaker peoples.
Now what proves that Schlick’s exposition of the roots of our sense of moral obligation is empirically incorrect is the fact that the intelligent, calm and reflective moral consciousness endorses the analogy between interindividual and international morality as basically valid, allowing for such differences of circumstance as those due to the difficulties of collective action and relative remoteness of relations. The fundamental reason why the capitalists of America and England ought not to exploit the peons of South America or the Negroes of Africa with the aid of bombs and bullets is precisely the same as the fundamental reason why they ought not similarly to exploit their own workers at home. It rests in the common nature of humanity and in what is due from man to [ p. 281 ] man by reason of that common nature. The reflective moral consciousness has always supported the view that human beings have certain rights which ought to be socially approved, whether they are or not. And this conviction, as we have seen, rests in the fundamental constitution of human nature as rooted in the disinterested will to the good.
Westermarck. — Both Dewey and Schlick acknowledge their debt to Westermarck for much of the evidence to which they point in support of their view that the sense of moral obligation is due to social pressure. But they ignore one feature of Westermarck’s exposition of this same theory which is of very great significance. This is the role assigned to the character of “disinterestedness”[21] attaching to the moral judgment. According to Westermarck’s finding from his enormous researches into the moral ideas of both primitive and civilized peoples, it is only that social approval and disapproval which bear the appearance of being disinterested that are regarded as moral; and these apparently disinterested judgments of the community are reflected in the mind of the individual as a sense of obligation.
In explanation of the reason why judgments must appear disinterested to be recognized as moral, Westermarck thinks it sufficient to point to the fact “that society is the birth-place of the moral consciousness; that the first moral judgments expressed, not the private emotions of isolated individuals, but emotions felt by the society at large.”[22] But this hardly seems adequate. Are group approval and disapproval usually so impartial that impartiality should come to be singled out as so much their characteristic feature that, when the individual holds before his mind two or more alternative judgments or decisions, the one which is impartial should appear to be the kind of decision that the group would make, and so carry [ p. 282 ] with it the peculiar sense of authority that belongs to the group? Is it not rather the case that, for some other reason, both individual and group judgments are felt to be moral and obligatory only when they seem impartial — i.e., when they appear to be expressions of a disinterested will to the good?[23] Certainly, as Westermarck himself declares,[24] when individuals arise to criticize prevalent moral ideas on the basis of their own feelings, they should be recognized as speaking in the name of morality so long as those feelings manifest an impartial or disinterested concern for the welfare of others or the correction of evils.
Thus, here again, the facts adduced point to the root of the sense of obligation as lying in that experience of the individual which is due to the operation within him of a fundamental tendency to seek disinterestedly the greatest good, rather than merely to respond to private needs and desires or to submit to social pressure.
© Obligation as Rooted in the Structure of Personality. — In general, naturalistic ethics tends to oscillate between the two explanations of the sense of obligation that we have discussed, sometimes attributing it to social pressure and sometimes to farsighted self-interest. There is, however, a third alternative, a suggestion of which empiricists might have found in Immanuel Kant; that conscience is due to the felt need of consistency; not, however, merely of thought (as with Kant) , but of will; i.e., that conscience is rooted in the felt need of integration of personality. Probably the reason why this interpretation has not been more frequently adopted is that, unless we recognize the fundamental character of the disinterested will, it suggests such a hopelessly subjectivistic and egoistic [ p. 283 ] type of ethics. This, nevertheless, is the position adopted by Professor T. V. Smith.[25]
In characteristically vigorous style Smith submits other typical explanations of conscience, empirical and nonempirical, to an acutely critical examination and rejects them. With them he rejects all claims of conscience to any kind or degree of authority. It is merely a state of feeling depending on our active inner personal integration, and its only value is to be aesthetically enjoyed. But then arises the question why conscience, in general, supports the principle of equity. Having dismissed the usual empirical explanations, which all grant some remnant of moral importance to conscience. Smith calls in the psychoanalysts to destroy the last of the claims of conscience to respect and to explain away its last claim to dignity: “the drive of conscience toward equalitarianism is its selfpunitive bid for absolution from its ancient power curse.”
It is a defense mechanism unconsciously erected by conscience in the effort to secure “allies in the great task of self-mastery.” The distressing need which we feel as an uneasy conscience is the need of an inner integration of personality, involving control over the ego and its unruly desires. So conscience, by an unconscious reaction, calls society in to help in its own inner problem of self-control. It asserts that all persons must behave in the way it feels it necessary to behave for its own inner peace, and that society must insist that all persons, including itself, recognize the equal rights of all.
The demand of conscience for the recognition of equal rights for all is thus explained as a sort of fortunate compulsion neurosis, developed by civilization and making its continuation possible. Like so many of the psychoanalytical the [ p. 284 ] cries of human behavior, it sounds a bit far-fetched. And, since it requires us to postulate subconscious reactions the existence of which can never be verified, it must always remain a hypothesis to be accepted only if the situation is susceptible of no explanation better supported by facts. Psychologically considered, it is a most unlikely hypothesis, since it explains a feature of conscience which emerges most strongly with the calmest possible reflection (the principle of equity) as being a mental reaction due to the severity of the inner conflict. On the other hand, when we attribute this principle to a natural disinterested tendency to seek the good wherever found, we see precisely why it should emerge most strongly in times of calm reflection, when the coarser habitual desires of the ego are in abeyance.
However, the central feature of Smith’s explanation of conscience may, I think, be accepted. It does arise out of the felt need of inner personal integration. But the reason why it, upon reflection, leads to the endorsement of the principle of equity is that complete integration is to be achieved only through the organization of all egoistic tendencies in due subordination to the deepest tendency of personality — the tendency which tends to make itself felt the more our selfunderstanding grows; the will that responds disinterestedly to what it feels as good. It is not sufficient to recognize, as does Professor DeWitt Parker, that the obligatory and objective character of the moral consciousness is due to the need of integration of personality, and to postulate that this need culminates merely in an “interest of the self as a whole.” We are glad to be able to cite Parker as another supporter of the view that the sense of obligation derives from the need for personal integration; but what requires emphasis is that this need would not take the form it does if the dominating interest were [ p. 285 ] any mere interest of the particular self in its own particular self-expression.
The fact that has to be faced is that genuine integration of volitional tendencies requires that those which have been developed (whether in the history of the individual or of the race) as mere means to more fundamental purposive drives have to be subordinated to the ends they serve. We therefore can learn which purposive tendencies are the more original by finding which have to be subordinated to which in order to achieve integration — and the deepest integration is marked by the deepest satisfaction, by inner peace and harmony. The whole ethical history of mankind then bears witness to the fact that this is achieved when the particular appetites and habits are subordinated to the fundamental will to self-preservation and self-expression, and when this in turn is subordinated to the will to pursue the greatest good, irrespective of whether that good accrues to the experience of the self or of other selves. This means that the primary form of will, to serve which all the others (even the will to self-maintenance) have been developed, is the disinterested will to the good. It means that every appetite and tendency to organic adjustment, the whole purposive organic life, is a secondary development subservient to it.[26]
It is for this reason that the reflective moral consciousness, acquiring by calm reflection a deeper insight into the functioning of its own desires, discovers that its egoistic desires (though often, by reason of habit, the strongest, and, by reason of the immediacy of the values concerned, the readiest to respond) are not the most fundamental. Its really fundamental aim is the increasing realization of values in every center (i.e., in every consciousness) where values are being and can be realized. To this fundamental will (the will to constructive activity in which the greatest possible values are [ p. 286 ] realized) all particular organic desires are thus more or less clearly seen to be instrumental. This more or less adequate insight into the actual order of our own will thus determines what we see as the reasonable order of our desires. It also determines which of our desires we feel ought to be subservient or instrumental, and which ought to be fulfilled. When we thus recognize the fundamental position of the disinterested will in the development of organic life, all the mystery disappears from the sense of obligation. It is seen to consist in a more or less adequate insight into the purposive order of one’s own life, into the teleological structure of one’s own personality, And the reason for its objectivity, and for the tendency of moralists to reach unanimity on fundamentals through progressive reflection, is the fact that the fundamental aim of each individual is the same (the disinterested pursuit of values) and that each is active in a common world of value potentialities.
If now we sum up the results of this analysis of moral experience we find that we have three very significant facts concerning the disinterested will. First, it is a direct response to objective situations according to their value-tone which seeks creatively to develop those situations in ways that maintain or increase their value; it is not merely an impulse developed by the specific needs of the individual organism or the race. Second, it is organic to a world order of values, distinguished as greater and less, higher and lower; and this world order progressively unfolds new values to call forth ever fresh creative activity. Third, it is the root of the sense of obligation, thus asserting its unique importance above that of all other impulses and desires; in the structure of personality it is fundamental and there is something wrong in the teleological order unless all specific interests are made to harmonize with it. In brief, the disinterested will appears as a part of the world order, responsive to the world order of values; and it is not [ p. 287 ] dependent on the individual psycho-physical organism, but the individual psycho-physical organism functions in rationally recognized subservience to it.
But will, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, must be regarded as a process within an omnipresent neutral substance. The set tendency of the disinterested will therefore is seen to be a feature of neutral substance present in each organism as the fundamental feature of its nonphysical structure, and existing independently of both the physical and the rest of the nonphysical structure. It is a feature of the world order to which the individual psycho-physical organism is instrumental and upon which it is dependent. It is both immanent in and transcendent to the individual organism. It is the basic structural feature common to every organism. Individual organisms are so many particular developments of its original creative initiative. They work out that initiative as opportunity develops and according to the values discovered in their own peculiar perspectives of the world. They are each independent developments because each new act of will is a spontaneous response to values as they are discerned. But the values that enter their experience depend upon the harmony of each new act of will with its ground in the earlier structure. Thus their deepest and most abiding values are ultimately determined by harmony with the disinterested will. So the individual remains in living contact with that disinterested will which underlies and transcends the specific organization of will that he recognizes as peculiarly his own. And in the long run he finds the deepest values of his own life realized by bringing the will that is peculiarly his own into conformity with the will that is his and yet more than merely his own.
In our analysis of religious experience we found that it is this other and higher will within himself that man has felt and [ p. 288 ] called God. Now we have learned that God is not only immanent in man but transcendent beyond him. God exists as a form of will, as an effective structural feature of the world order, a set tendency of the neutral substance which underlies at least all its other nonphysical structures and processes known to us. And, since personality is neither more nor less than an organization of will, God is personal. His personality is the source of ours and in his personality ours finds its basis and completion. His personality includes ours and transcends it. Each of us finds his good in the development of his own personality, but only in such development as is in harmony with God’s, and therefore in harmony with that of all other personalities. For the one divine will seeks in and through each the good of all.
Empirical knowledge is rooted in the analytical distinction of data in their given relations to each other. But it goes beyond this bare acquaintance to formulate an interpretation of (i.e., to give meaning to) what is discriminated as given. Thus from a discrimination of sensory data it passes to thought about the physical world, and from a discrimination of mental activities and values to thought about the mental or spiritual world. In both cases the validity of the thought (meaning or interpretation) is tested by its interconsistency with further experience and the thought arising from it. When thoroughly tested we call it knowledge.
It may therefore be said that we have knowledge of God. He is not merely a hypothetical entity invented, more or less legitimately, to explain peculiar facts in our experience or to fill the gaps in our scientific explanations. Our knowledge of him begins with the discrimination of a datum, an act of will, within the active process of our own personality. It goes on to discover the relation of that datum to other data — to other acts of will, to the value qualities, to that peculiar combination of value qualities and volitional relations we call the [ p. 289 ] sense of obligation, and so to the world of persons and things in which we find ourselves. On ordinary occasions the central datum, the disinterested will, is interpreted as a part of the ordinary self; but on certain special occasions its conflict with the rest of the self, its relation to certain higher value qualities, and its place in the experience of obligation, make this explanation seem inadequate. It may then be interpreted as primarily the expression of a greater self on which our own private selves depend.
Traditional philosophical theory, by reason of the notion that a self consists essentially of a unitary center of private consciousness, has regarded these two interpretations as contradictory. But the careful analysis of moral and religious experience upon which we have been engaged tends to validate both interpretations. And the modern understanding of the self allows of the truth of both interpretations; for it depicts the self as a system of volitional tendencies, the feeling aspect of which tends to culminate in a unified attentive consciousness, but is not limited to this and may possess subsidiary centers. It thus becomes possible to regard the private human consciousness as a subsidiary center of attentive consciousness within, and organic to, a larger mental life, characterized by that disinterested will to the good in which our own mental life is ultimately rooted. Freudian psychology has shown us how such divisions of personality within personality may occur even in human life, though a division of personality within a single organism is pathological. But the development of distinct personalities together with distinct organisms is natural.
What our religious experience discloses is that the distinct personality, thus developing, never loses contact with the wider personal order out of which it is developed, any more than the physical organism loses touch with the physical order out of which it is developed. The psycho-physical organism [ p. 290 ] of man is organic to the psycho-physical order of the world. He discerns value potentialities in the world order that are not primarily values of his own organism. The deepest element of his own personality responds in creative effort to effect their realization. In that effort new and unexpected values are realized by reason of the integration of the subsidiary forms of his personality with this disinterested form of will which is its foundation and source. But this personal Will that pursues values beyond the individual, and with which the individual may integrate himself, is, as we have seen, neither derived from nor confined to the will of the individual organism. The individual finds himself integrated with it, but it is not merely an integral part of him.
Thus we may justifiably speak of our knowledge of God as knowledge of both his immanence and his transcendence. That knowledge, of course, is very limited — much more so even than our knowledge of the physical world. What we know is that our world manifests in us constructive acts of will, responsive to the values the world presents to experience and directed toward the realization of values beyond our experience. And we have strong reason to believe that this will is not the product of our organisms, but has produced them; that they are organic to it; that it pursues its ends in and through them, influencing though not controlling them. We know that our good is found in the service of this larger will and that in and through us it seeks the good of all. Of the content of its experience we know only so far as its experience, of joy and disappointment in its more or less successful efforts, is also ours. Of its origin we do not know, save that it was in the world before us, since our organisms are organic to it. For the same reason it must be prior to all the kinds of particular organic life we know. It is personal, for personality is neither more nor less than a system of will. In this person our personalities have their foundation and in our personalities [ p. 5591 ] this person finds his fulfillment. He is thus not merely a person, but, so far as we know, the only complete Person. This is God, as known in religious experience. It is God, “whose we are and whom we serve,” in whom “we live and move and have our being.” There is no question of his goodness, for we know him first and best as the higher will that seeks in and through us the good of others.
It is plain, then, that we may love God and should serve him. But to what extent can we trust him? He has good will toward men. But what power has he to do them good? Regarding the most important question here we can answer with some confidence. Does our knowledge of God support the hope that our lives may be sustained in him and find new spheres of expression, and scope and means for continued growth, after the dissolution of the body? Concerning this there can be little doubt if the conclusions already arrived at are accepted. We have seen that the physical organism is merely instrumental to the constructive activity of will in response to its experience of value. And personality is a system of will. Our personalities are rooted, therefore, not in the physical structure of the world, but in its volitional structure. Our experience of value depends upon the interrelationship of the activities of this volitional structure. The activities of the volitional structure affect, in some way, the course of our physical activity, and are responsive to the qualities presented through physical activity. That concentration of attention upon control of the organism and experiences connected with it would, we may expect, end with the dissolution of the organism. With this release of attention a new range of experience, connected with the relation of the personality to the wider processes of the world in its vast diffusion of activity, should become available. Further development of personality would be found in the organization of this experience in ways found to be of value. And a multitude of persons, organic [ p. 292 ] to a universal Person and organizing their experience in a common world, should not be devoid of influence upon each other through that common world, and should thus find available those means of communication and mutual aid essential to a common life.
Again, concerning the power of God to guide our lives toward the realization of the fullest good for ourselves and others, the answer is clear. His will is the ultimate determinant of the system of our values. Because of this we find our good in activity that contributes to the good of all. When, blinded by passion or ignorance, men do not pursue this good, then they, or society after them, discover the disvalues involved, and experimental search is made for better ways. Thus, tentatively and erringly, man pursues the good and is guided by it toward the realization of a fuller life for all. We are not offered an assurance that all will be well in the long run whatever men may do. But we can go forward with confidence that our progressive insight into the good is an increasing insight into the teleological order of reality, and thus that the way to its realization is open — that the things we value most are not ultimately at the mercy of the things we value least, and that the way to the increasing attainment of the best is to be true to the good as our keenest reflective intelligence sees it.
But when we ask whether God is able to order the behavior of men and the course of the physical world according to his will, then the answer of religious experience must be in the negative. Indeed, as we saw in an earlier chapter, it is chiefly the influence of philosophical speculation that has led to the adoption of such beliefs. Our religious experience reveals God as influencing our behavior through our value experience, but the fact of conflict shows that he does not control it. Nor is there any evidence in religious experience to show that the will of God controls the course of the physical world. In [ p. 293 ] the fact of the operation of will in the constructive development and behavior of living organisms there is evidence that the course of physical events is not entirely beyond all influence from the volitional order of the world. But it would seem to fall far short of complete control. Over the behavior and development of animate nature there is the same indication, as in our own experience, of influence but not control. Philosophy and tradition have created much trouble for theology by theories which extend the divine power to the purposive and fixed creation of each particular form of life, unaffected by the will and striving of the creature concerned, and by attributing to God a direct control of physical nature and even of the human will. Much of this is very primitive philosophy and has long been incorporated in religion. But its roots are, nevertheless, in philosophical speculation rather than in religious experience.
The extent of the divine power over the physical world and human behavior seems to be sufficient for our faith in immortality and the validity of our values. Beyond that the interest of religion in it concerns such questions as the scope of prayer, providence, and special revelation. The general formula at which we have arrived is that God is able to influence but not control the course of human behavior and that our mental activity (and therefore, surely, the divine also) has some effect upon physical process. But this leaves many questions open. No answer can be made on general principles that this, that or the other is possible or impossible. It is a question for empirical evidence in each case.
An examination of any particular case would be beyond the scope of this work, but a few general considerations may be indicated. In the first place, the fact that an event is extraordinary and not even theoretically explicable in terms of known physical laws does not prove that it is supernatural; neither does it prove that it could not really have happened; our [ p. 294 ] knowledge of the borderline phenomena of mind and matter is altogether too vague for any such confident assertions. Second, human testimony is very unreliable even when perfectly honest; rumor grows with extraordinary rapidity and does not require a deliberate intention to deceive in order to originate or propagate it. Third, abnormal psychological experiences prove nothing; yet they are quite consistent with the intelligence and integrity of a witness or teacher; they are a common result of intense inner conflict; and since new moral insights can rarely be achieved without inner conflict, and the sense of conflict contributes to the deepening of religious conviction, they should be expected to be a common feature of the experience of prominent religious innovators.
It is not to be supposed that the human mind will rest content with that knowledge of God which is directly given and implied in religious experience. Nor is it desirable that it should. To render life and thought consistent we must bring together the results obtained from the analysis and interpretation of every phase of experience — sensory-motor, aesthetic, ethical and religious. This thinking of our results together is a check on the validity of the results arrived at in each sphere. This is synoptic philosophy, or metaphysics. So far as possible we have avoided it in the present work, confining ourselves as much as possible to the analysis and interpretation of religious experience. But we cannot refuse to face the fact that our conclusions from this sphere have implications for synoptic philosophy. They suggest, as we have already pointed out, a monistic theory of the ultimate being, a recognition of determinate, eternal, qualitative potentialities within that being, and a distinction of two kinds of activity — physical and mental — manifested by it which between them realize or display a selection of the qualities.
[ p. 295 ]
For theology this raises the question whether the ultimate and all-inclusive being should be called God. We began by recognizing that what is immediately known as God is the disinterested will within us. We next saw that this should be regarded as the immanent presence of a will that transcends the organisms and to which all organisms are organic. Here, then, was a wider concept of God. But philosophical reflection leads to the thought that God, in this latter sense, must be organic to the world as a whole, including the as yet unrealized determinate potentialities and the physical world as well. So thought passes to the concept of God as the universal reality. In each of these phases God may rightly be called personal, and they represent fairly well the three phases of the divine being distinguished in the doctrine of the trinity — except so far as the Logos, or second person, is identified with the personality of Jesus. With the historical elements of the creed we do not here concern ourselves, and its metaphysical terminology is certainly inadequate, but we nevertheless can see that it interprets, with deep insight, the God of both religious experience and scientific thought.
We saw that religious experience of itself leads us to think that there are limits to the power of God to control human behavior and the physical world. The ground of those limitations that should be recognized in the God of philosophic thought is therefore a question at least of considerable academic interest. Theology has usually asserted that God is self-limited in the gift of free will to man. But we have seen that the divine will, as immediately known in us, has only a very limited control over matter also. Whether that will, as transcendent, has any control over inanimate nature is a question for empirical inquiry. The history of the traditional metaphysical arguments for the being of God seems to show that there is no certain evidence for any such control, and that there are reasonable indications orf only a limited control. [ p. 296 ] Combined with the evidence from moral and religious experience this limited control becomes a very well supported metaphysical theory. But we have still to ask what is the nature of the control and its limitations.
Plato believed that beside God there exists matter as also eternal, and that God’s creative activity exerted upon matter found it not entirely conformable to his will. Thus evil and imperfection in the world are to be attributed to the resistance of matter to the divine activity. This ultimate dualism has always seemed rather unsatisfactory to both philosophy and religion. So, too, have pluralisms, such as William James’s theory of the universe as a society of spirits of which God is primus inter pares.[27] Yet, until recent decades, monism has seemed to tend logically either to an absolutism in which God is equally responsible for good and evil, or to one in which there is no God at all. This century, however, has seen a strong tendency toward an organismic conception of the universe which is neither strict monism nor pluralism, but recognizes the universe as a unity in which several distinguishable principles function together. By far the most original and most thoroughly worked out philosophy of this kind is that of Professor Whitehead,[28] for whom God is the most important, but not the only, controlling principle in the course of the universe, others being certain determinate potentialities, such as those of sense and value, and the spontaneous creative activity manifested in the actual ongoing of the world. Another organismic philosophy recognizing a limited divine control of the universe — and one which has aroused much interest, especially in America — is that of Professor Brightman. This suggests that God is limited by a factor within his own being which is called “the Given.”[29] It is a passive element [ p. 297 ] within his nature, additional to his reason and will, which enters into every one of his conscious states and constitutes a problem for him.
Brightman’s statement of the nature of the limitations that must be recognized is made from the standpoint of an idealist, Whitehead’s rather more from that of a realist. Brightman includes the limiting factors within God. Whitehead describes God as a factor constituting one whole with them. Whether such a whole should itself be called God is, plainly, little more than a matter of terminology. But of these two accounts of the factors limiting the divine influence and activity, Brightman’s, due to the idealist approach, emphasizes its passive nature, while Whitehead’s view would explain the element of disorder and evil in the world chiefly by reference to the spontaneous activity of the actual entities that make up the particular things and organisms of the world. In brief, Whitehead explains evil by carrying the principle of freedom down from human nature to all nature, animate and inanimate. And this is entirely in accord with modern science, both in biology and in physics.
If we then recognize that there is a perfectly legitimate sense in which the absolute, the universe as a whole, may be called God, then, though God in this sense is not finite, yet much is beyond the control of his will. But that which limits his will is, as Brightman says, not outside his being but within it. It is, on our view, the fact that the creative activity, which is the expression of his being and which we discover in the two forms of physical and mental activity, is in both forms a creative development of free agents spontaneously active. If we ask why God does not control human history and the physical world and shape them more in accord with human needs, the answer is that he cannot. And he cannot because we and all other entities are free agents. If we ask why God did not create for us a world of unfree agencies, yet malleable to our will, the answer is. again, that he could not. And the reason. [ p. 298 ] so far as we can see, is that he cannot create entities so foreign to his own nature. If we ask why, when we err, our experience should be attended by so much pain, the answer is that all the qualities of our experience are realized by our own activity out of the determinate potentialities of God’s own being, which are not subject to his will; that his will works with ours to realize good rather than evil; and that whatever of good or evil we experience is his experience as well as ours, for we are in him.[30]
F. C. Sharp: Ethics (New York: Century Co., 1928) , pp. 481-84. ↩︎
Ibid., p. 88 . Allowance must, of course, be made for the fact that altruism can be manifested only as the child becomes aware of other selves. ↩︎
W. T. Stace: The Concept of Morals (New York: The Macmillan Co., >937) • P- s 8 i. ↩︎
Ibid., pp. 22 ff. ↩︎
Ibid., p. 67. ↩︎
Ibid., pp. 252-54. ↩︎
Ibid., p. 262. ↩︎
Ibid., pp. 277-79. ↩︎
This is the reason for the success in interpretation of ethical problems achieved by the important British school of moral philosophers known as deontologists. They make the term “right” more fundamental for ethics than “good,” and, for decision as to what is right, appeal to our sense of what is fitting or proper in the circumstances. If our analysis is correct, however, this method succeeds only because our sense of what is fitting is a sense of what is fitting to the structure of personality as an order of will, and because the feature of that structure that ultimately determines what is fitting is the disinterested will to the greatest possible good. Thus, in spite of the success of the deontological approach in clarifying ethical problems, it remains true that it is the nature of the good that ultimately determines what is right. For an exposition of deontology see Ross: The Right and the Good and Foundations of Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1939) . For a critical reinterpretation of this theory see my article, “Deontology and Self-realization,” Ethics, July 1941. ↩︎
Human Nature and Conduct, pp. 314-16 passim. ↩︎
Ibid., pp. 326-28 passim. ↩︎
Ibid., pp. 326-27. ↩︎
For a reference to the objections of the deontologists to this point of view cf. footnote 9, this chapter. ↩︎
Human Nature and Conduct, p. 329. ↩︎
Problems of Ethics (New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1939) , p. 195. ↩︎
Ibid., pp. 82-83. ↩︎
lbid.,p,i. ↩︎
Ibid., pp. 96-97. ↩︎
Ibid, p. 197. ↩︎
Ibid., pp. 110-11, 114 passim. ↩︎
Cf. Ethical Relativity, especially pp. 92 ff. ↩︎
Ibid., p. log. ↩︎
Allowance must be made here for the fact that tradition and prejudice distort the view of what seems impartial, and narrow the range of good which the individual is willing to consider. ↩︎
Ethical Relativity, p. 112 . ↩︎
Beyond Conscience (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1934) . For an able critique of this point of view cf. A. E. Murphy: “Conscience, Tolerance and Moral Discrimination,” Ethics, April 1939. ↩︎
For fuller exposition see my Reality and Value, chaps. 6-12. ↩︎
A Pluralistic Universe (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1909) . ↩︎
Process and Reality (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1929) . ↩︎
E. S. Brightman: The Problem of God (New York: Abingdon Press, 1930) . ↩︎
For fuller exposition cf, my Reality and Value, especially chaps. 5, 12. ↩︎