GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

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ETHICS
the obligation which we have to develop our own person-
alities, enlarge our intellects and develop our tastes,
because of our absorption in work for the welfare of others.
For, as Butter points out, even Benevolence can be overdone,
though its excess is neither so frequent nor so blameworthy
as that of Self-love* It is -not so frequent, because
there is a general tendency to love oneself more than to*
love others; it is not so blameworthy, because in a society
in which too few are benevolent, that is to say in every
society that has ever existed, an excess of Benevolence
on the part of some does in fact conduce to the welfare of
most Excess of Benevolence is, nevertheless, blameworthy
as tending to destroy the right relation between the different
elements in human nature upon which Bugler has insisted
as the foundation of virtue. It is the business of Co
the over-riding principle, to maintain this right relation.
Neglect
of Conscience. Conscience
to fall into neglect in the twentieth century,
partly because it was overworked in the nineteenth. In the
nineteenth century, elder persons habitually invoked Con-
science to justify their natural dislike of seeing their
juniors participating in enjoyments which age or lack of
charm denied to themselves. In the twentieth century
they tend to explain it away altogether, and, instigated
thereto by psycho-analysis, profess to find its origins in
feelings of guilt born of inhibitions and renunciations in
early childhood. "Conscience," Freud defines as "the
result of instinctual renunciation, or/ 9
he continues,
"Renunciation (externally imposed) gives rise to coo-
science, which then demands further renunciations."
Subjectwe-Intuitionism, as we shall see in Chapter X 1
regards Conscience as a form of inherited instinct which
prompts the individual to perform those actions which
will conduce to die advantage of the society to which he
belongs, or rather -for there is often a time lag before
the dictates of Conscience conform to the new needs of
* See Chapter X, pp.