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

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> ETHICS
as well as to will the duty that we know. Furthermore, in
regard to this requirement of discernment, no less than in
regard to the requirement of willing, we are free; we are
free, that is to say, within the conditions laid down in
Chapter VII, to improve and perfect our natural endowment
in the matter of intelligence no less than in that of
will.
That Moral Valuations are Relative to Social Need,
Circumstance and Status. The second case, that of the
man with good intentions who lacks insight has, it is
obvious, important social implications. A man, I have
suggested, may want to do what is right; he may also
possess good judgment and form an accurate estimate of
the consequences of his actions. Yet the consequences he
desires, intends to produce and does in fact produce, may
not be such as are valuable. In other words, the actions
which he thinks right may not be those which, according
to the definition of lightness already given, are in fact right.
Now it has been conceded to the subjectivists that what
a man thinks right and what a man thinks valuable will
depend very largely upon the standards of the community
in which he happens to live. Most men, as the objective
intuitionists point out, possess intuitions in regard to
what is right and wrong which owe nothing to reflection,
moral principles or estimates of consequences. As a consequence,
they have in all ages judged certain things to be
right, certain things to be wrong, without being able
to give reasons for their judgments. Now what they
judge right, what wrong, is almost always determined
by the moral code of the community to which they happen
to belong. On those occasions on which the plain man
does consciously take consequences into account and seeks to
justify his judgment of the rightness or wrongness of an
action by appealing to them, his valuation of consequences
will be no less dependent upon a moral standard which
has been formed for him by his environment and not by
him as a result of independent reflection.