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

' ETHICS
They also have the capacity for recognizing those particulars
in which the forms of value such as moral virtue and
beauty are exemplified. If this were not the case, we should
not know a good man when we meet him, any more than
we should know a beautiful picture when we see it; nor
would ethical imperatives based upon intuitions of value,
for example, that we ought to do our duty, that we ought
to tell the truth, that we ought not to make other people
miserable, that we ought to keep our promises, any more
than aesthetic valuations, for example, that this sonnet
is better than that one, or that the Adagio of Bach's
Double Violin Concerto is better than the song of a
crooner, have any meaning for us.
Relation of Knowledge of Universals to Recognition of
Particulars. It is only if we assume that there is innate
knowledge ofvalue and of that manifestation ofvalue which
is moral virtue, that we can explain our recognition of
the goodness of a particular person, or of the obligation to
perform a particular duty. A knowledge of the universal,
moral virtue, must, in other words, precede the recognition
that particulars exemplify the universal, just as a knowledge
of redness must precede the recognition that a particular
object is red* But activity of the mind tnat recognizes
a particular does not terminate with the recognition of
the particular; it is led to the apprehension of something
beyond the particular, and achieves an enhanced knowledge
of the universal. Every time we recognize a beautiful
picture, every time we acknowledge a man's virtue, our
aesthetic taste is refined, our moral sensibility increased.
Every time we set our hands, however inadequately, to *
the making of a beautiful thing, every time we try in the
face of temptation to do our duty, our knowledge of beauty
is increased, our moral character strengthened.
How, Aristotle asked, does a man become good, and
answered in my view, correctly by doing good acts.
How, it may be asked, does a man come to have good
taste. The answer, mutatis mutandis, is the same; by having