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376
ETHICS
French "which is the distinctive feature of social facts
is that which all exercise upon each". Durkheim, in fact,
is postulating the existence of a kind of communal
feeling like the intuitive sense which causes birds to fly
in flocks, wheel in unison, or migrate at the same time,
each member of the flock communicating its feeling to
and so acting upon the others, without being consciously
aware that it does so. In primitive societies bound together
by laws of custom and taboo, this communal sense is,
he points out, particularly strong. Pressing upon the
individual from without, expressing itself as a series of
promptings and impulses from within,
it determines his
views upon religion, politics and morals. What is sacred,
what is due, what is fitting, what is right all these con-
cepts are determined for the individual by the social sense
of the tribe. Now the social sense of the tribe is, in its
origin, determined by utilitarian considerations. It approves
whatever is, or at least was once, recognized to be beneficial
for the tribe; propitiates what is felt to be dangerous;
disapproves of what is seen to be harmful. Hence
the effect of the pressure of social feeling is to cause the
individual to feel and act in such a way as to conduce to
the preservation of society and the promotion of its welfare.
But that the preservation of society and the promotion
of its welfare are at once the effect and the justification
of their moral feelings and actions is not apparent to
those who feel morally and do their duty, since they have
forgotten, if they ever knew, what is the justification of
those impulses of approval and disapproval,
source of those promptings to action, which
make up
what the
for them
the content of morality.
Summary of Subjectivist Theories. This chapter has
covered a considerable amount of ground and brought
together under the common heading of subjectivist theories
of ethics views which have been put forward at different
times by very various writers. For the convenience of
readers who wish to obtain a general survey of those