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

3O2
ETHICS
societies Are differently constituted and have different
needs. Morality Which, to use a phrase of Professor
Muirhead's, contains a "quality of social tissue" reflects
these needs, and, since the needs vary, morality varies
with them. In general, the morality of any society will
prescribe as right and fitting whatever conduct contributes
to the maintenance of that society and the promotion of
its welfare. Not only do the needs of a society vary, the
functions of individuals vary in that society. Each individual
has a definite rdle to play and a definite status to maintain in
the society to which he belongs. To this rdle and to this
status his duty is relative. Hence what is right and fitting
for one individual will be wrong and unfitting for
another. It follows that individual morality cannot be
considered apart from the place of the individual in the
society to which he belongs, the functions which he performs
in the society, and the structure and needs of the
society.
That Morality Evolves and Progresses. Now societies
evolve. Therefore the moral sense whose deliverances
are, on this view, relative to their needs and conduce
to their preservation evolves and progresses with them.
The teaching of history shows that it has in fact done so.
The traditional moral customs of the barbarians and
early Greeks become the highly
elaborate and rational
morality of the Greek philosophers. The general principles
laid down in the Ten Commandments are particularized
in the Book of the Covenant. The somewhat primitive and
vindictive morality which animates the heroes of the
Old Testament is refined into the highly spiritualized
moral code of the Sermon on the Mount.
It would be superfluous to multiply instances. The
process by which society becomes more complex and
moral codes more elaborate is sufficiently obvious. Nor
is the change only in the direction of greater elaboration.
People to-day are, it is said, kinder, more sympathetic,
more sensitive to suffering in others, than at any previous